Report: Justice didn’t disclose luxury trips

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas accepted luxury trips around the globe for more than two decades, including travel on a superyacht and a private jet, from a prominent Republican donor without disclosing them, according to a new report.

ProPublica reported Thursday on an array of trips funded by Harlan Crow, a Dallas businessman. The publication said Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks. It said the justice also has vacationed at Crow’s ranch in East Texas and has joined Crow at the Bohemian Grove, an exclusive all-male retreat in California.

ProPublica cited a nine-day trip that Thomas and his wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, took to Indonesia in 2019, shortly after the court released its final opinions of the term. That trip, which included flights on Crow’s jet and island-hopping on a superyacht, would have cost the couple more than $500,000 if they had paid for it themselves, the publication said.

Neither the Supreme Court nor Thomas responded immediately to questions about the report. ProPublica said Thomas did not respond to questions about its reporting.

In a statement, Crow acknowledged that he has extended “hospitality” to the Thomas-es “over the years” but said the couple “never asked for any of this hospitality” and that he has not tried to influence the justice on matters before the court.

“We have never asked about a pending or lower court case, and Justice Thomas has never discussed one, and we have never sought to influence Justice Thomas on any legal or political issue,” Crow said. “More generally, I am unaware of any of our friends ever lobbying or seeking to influence Justice Thomas on any case, and I would never invite anyone who I believe had any intention of doing that. These are gatherings of friends.”

Federal law mandates that top officials from the three branches of government, including the Supreme Court, file annual forms detailing their finances, outside income and spouses’ sources of income, with each branch determining its own reporting standards.

Judges are prohibited from accepting gifts from anyone with business before the court. Until recently, however, the judicial branch had not clearly defined an exemption for gifts considered “personal hospitality.”

Revised rules adopted by a committee of the Judicial Conference, the courts’ policymaking body, seek to provide a fuller accounting. The rules took effect March 14.

Gifts such as an overnight stay at a personal vacation home owned by a friend remain exempt from reporting requirements. But the revised rules require disclosure when judges are treated to stays at commercial properties, such as hotels, ski resorts or corporate hunting lodges. The changes also clarify that judges must report travel by private jet.

According to ProPublica, Thomas’s trips funded by Crow do not appear on his financial disclosures.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Richard Durbin, D-Ill., vowed in a statement that his panel would take action in response to the report, calling Thomas’ behavior “simply inconsistent with the ethical standards the American people expect of any public servant, let alone a justice on the Supreme Court.”

Durbin and other Democrats renewed calls for the court to adopt a strict ethics code that would include a process for investigating alleged misconduct, and some Democrats called on Thomas to resign.

“This cries out for the kind of independent investigation that the Supreme Court — and only the Supreme Court, across the entire government — refuses to perform,” tweeted Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., who has sponsored legislation that would direct the court to adopt an ethics code.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., renewed her call for Thomas to step down Thursday, saying that the “degree of corruption is shocking — almost cartoonish.”

While the scope of Crow’s funding of Thomas’ travel has not been previously reported, the largesse directed at the justice by the billionaire donor has provoked controversy previously.

In 2011, the New York Times reported that Crow had done many favors for Thomas and his wife, notably financing the multimillion-dollar purchase and restoration of a cannery in Pin Point, Ga., that was a pet project of the justice.

The Times also reported that Crow helped finance a Savannah, Ga., library project dedicated to Thomas, presented him with a Bible that belonged to Frederick Douglass and reportedly provided $500,000 for Ginni Thomas to start a group related to the tea party.

Thomas, who joined the court in 1991, has drawn scrutiny on other ethical issues in recent years, several related to the political activism of his wife.