Non-profit media outlet ProPublica has a new scoop about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Specifically, the piece details how, “for more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year” from real estate mogul Harlan Crow – a billionaire who happens to be a Republican megadonor.
Thomas, who has an annual salary of $285,000, went on a half-million-dollar, Crow-funded trip to Indonesia in 2019, for example. Thomas “has vacationed on Crow’s superyacht around the glove. He flies on Crow’s Bombardier Global 500 jet. He has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive all-male retreat, and to Crow’s sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks,” ProPublica reported.
Accepting Influence
It’s not a great look for Thomas, although the self-righteous (but well-meaning) ProPublica is a little breathless about the news (“The extent and frequency of Crow’s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court”). The implication, of course, is that Thomas is being incentivized to rule a certain way – presumably Crow’s way, conservatively.
I understand the ethics problem here – but I’m not positive a trip to Indonesia is influencing Thomas’s rulings all that much. Thomas kind of has a zealot thing going on. He’s a hard-core conservative; fluffing him with a trip to the Adirondacks is not going to assure his conservativeness, he’s already there. You don’t need to take him to Indonesia to get him to roll back Roe v. Wade, know what I mean? He’ll do that for free.
But Thomas has acted in a way that raises questions about his impartiality.
Obviously, that’s a big problem for a Supreme Court justice. Virginia Canter, a former ethics attorney who now works for Citizens for Ethics (CREW), said that Thomas “seems to have completely disregarded his higher ethical obligations.”
“When a justice’s lifestyle is being subsidized by the rich and famous, it absolutely corrodes public trust,” Canter said. Fair point.
Handling the Fallout
Thomas has raised legal questions with his Crow-funded trips, too. Namely, did Thomas break the law? “These trips appeared nowhere on Thomas’ financial disclosures,” ProPublica reported. “His failure to report the flights appears to violate a law passed after Watergate that requires justices, judges, members of Congress and federal officials to disclose most gifts, two ethics law experts said. He also should have disclosed his trips on the yacht.”
Naturally, Crow is downplaying the arrangement; Crow admitted that he’d treated Thomas (and his wife) to “hospitality” “over the years” but that it was “no different from the hospitality we have extended to our many other dear friends.” According to Crow, he is “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.”
That may well be true, but Crow has “spent millions on ideological efforts to shape the law and the judiciary.” And the idea that Crow is funding Thomas’s vacations every year reflects poorly on the Supreme Court – a vital institution whose reputation has not fared well in recent years. Increasingly, the court has been viewed in partisan terms, as a group compromised of partisan individuals. The idea is deeply harmful to the institution’s credibility – all the more so because the idea seems rooted in truth. Thomas’s trips don’t help.
Thomas defended the trips, however, stating he understood that “this sort of personal hospitality” did not apply to gift disclosure requirements. Thomas also emphasized that Crow and his wife, Kathy, were “amongst our dearest friends, and we have been friends for over twenty-five years.”
Harrison Kass is the Senior Editor at 19FortyFive. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison listens to Dokken.
