Justice Thomas Still Hiding More Free Trips From His Client Benefactor

 

By Abbie VanSickle

The New York Times

 

Justice Clarence Thomas failed to publicly disclose additional private travel provided by the wealthy conservative donor Harlan Crow, a top Democratic senator said in a letter on Monday.

Customs and Border Protection records revealed that the justice and his wife, Virginia Thomas, took a round trip between Hawaii and New Zealand in November 2010 on Mr. Crow’s private jet, according to the letter. Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, writing to Mr. Crow’s lawyer, demanded that he supply more information about the financial relationship between the two men.

The letter, part of an inquiry that Mr. Wyden, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, has opened into Mr. Crow and the justice, comes as top Democrats have urged major changes to the Supreme Court, including an enforceable code of conduct. 

Mr. Wyden said the latest revelation had only increased his misgivings about the relationship between the justice and Mr. Crow, a real estate magnate. “I am deeply concerned that Mr. Crow may have been showering a public official with extravagant gifts, then writing off those gifts to lower his tax bill,” Mr.  

Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, wrote a letter to Harlan Crow asking for details about private travel with Justice Clarence Thomas.

 

Justice Thomas did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.

A spokesman for Mr. Crow, Michael Zona, said that his lawyers had “already addressed Senator Wyden’s inquiries, which have no legal basis and are only intended to harass a private citizen.” It accused Mr. Wyden of a politically motivated effort to undermine the Supreme Court.

The statement added that Mr. Crow had “always followed applicable tax law.”

“We consider this matter settled and refer Senator Wyden to our previous correspondence,” the statement read.

Read the Letter to Harlan Crow

Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, wrote a letter to Harlan Crow asking for details about private travel with Justice Clarence Thomas.

READ DOCUMENT

Harlan Crow in a dark blue blazer and a light 

-up shirt.

The letter also provided a glimpse into the congressional investigation into the gifts from Mr. Crow to Justice Thomas. 

Credit...LM Otero/Associated Press

Justice Thomas has previously said that he did not believe he needed to disclose gifts of personal hospitality from friends who did not have cases before the Supreme Court. 

By law, justices are required to fill out a financial disclosure form each year, including, among other things, outside sources of income and gifts. But Justice Thomas’s form for 2010 does not list any flights on Mr. Crow’s jet.

Mr. Wyden singled out the discrepancy in his letter, noting that the justice had revised past records to reveal travel provided by Mr. Crow. “To date, Justice Thomas has never disclosed this private jet travel on any financial disclosure forms, even though Justice Thomas has amended disclosures to reflect other international travel on Mr. Crow’s private jet,” he wrote.

In a 2023 article, ProPublica noted that the justice had sailed aboard Mr. Crow’s yacht, the Michaela Rose, in New Zealand, about a decade ago. Justice Thomas, in a show of gratitude, gave a crew member a signed copy of his memoir.

It was not immediately clear whether the 2010 flight disclosed by Mr. Wyden was part of the same trip, or how Justice Thomas and his wife traveled to and from Hawaii.

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Mr. Wyden also cited reports that the justice had accompanied Mr. Crow to Greece, Russia and the Baltics. None of these trips are noted on the justice’s financial disclosure forms. 

Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, demanded in a letter to Mr. Crow’s lawyer that he supply more information about the financial relationship between the two men. 

In his letter, Mr. Wyden said that determining “the means and scale of Mr. Crow’s undisclosed largess to Justice Thomas” would be critical to informing legislation that the committee was drafting.

Revelations that some justices had failed to disclose luxury gifts and travel from wealthy benefactors have spurred Democratic lawmakers, and in recent weeks, President Biden himself, to push for toughening the ethics code, among other proposals, at the Supreme Court. Such efforts face long odds in a divided Congress.

A White House spokesman said that the news of the undisclosed travel reinforced President Biden’s calls for an enforceable code of conduct.

“The most powerful court in the United States shouldn’t be subject to the lowest ethical standards, and conflicts of interest on the Supreme Court cannot go unchecked,” said the spokesman, Andrew Bates. 

Mr. Wyden’s letter provided a glimpse into the congressional investigation of the travels and gifts from Mr. Crow to Justice Thomas.

Mr. Wyden accused Mr. Crow of failing to hand over comprehensive information about his travels with the justice, saying he would give Mr. Crow “one final opportunity to address the tax treatment of yacht and jet trips involving Justice Thomas.”

Although Justice Thomas had claimed the travels were “personal hospitality” and therefore exempt from public disclosure requirements, Mr. Wyden wrote, legislators wanted proof that Mr. Crow had not claimed any tax deductions as business expenses for hosting the justice on his yacht and private jet.

The Senate committee has not yet sought Mr. Crow’s tax records from the Internal Revenue Service and hopes that Mr. Crow will voluntarily comply with the request to turn over the information, said Ryan J. Carey, a spokesman for the Finance Committee chairman.

Mr. Carey said that exercising the committee’s power to seek tax records is “a long process” and that if Mr. Crow’s “tax treatment of the yacht is legitimate, he should be willing to say so.” 

Other Democratic members of Congress have also sought to hold Supreme Court justices accountable.

In June, a separate congressional investigation into Justice Thomas revealed three additional trips aboard Mr. Crow’s private jet that he had not included on his financial disclosure forms: one to a city in Montana, near Glacier National Park, in 2017; one to his hometown, Savannah, Ga., in March 2019; and one to Northern California in 2021.

In July, shortly after the Supreme Court granted substantial immunity to presidents, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, introduced articles of impeachment against Justices Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. She accused them of failing to disclose their travels with benefactors and contended that they should have recused themselves in cases that involved efforts by Donald J. Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election. (Mrs. Thomas was actively involved in that bid, and flags used to support the “Stop the Steal” movement have been spotted outside the Alitos’ homes.)

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s move, broadly considered a political maneuver, has no realistic chance of advancing in Congress.

Under mounting pressure, the justices issued an ethics code last fall, the first in the court’s history. But many experts quickly pointed out its flaws, particularly given the lack of an enforcement mechanism. In a recent speech, Justice Elena Kagan acknowledged those shortcomings and suggested that the chief justice could appoint a panel of respected judges to enforce the ethics rules.

Abbie VanSickle covers the United States Supreme Court for The Times. She is a lawyer and has an extensive background in investigative reporting. More about Abbie VanSickle