'Another Day, Another Undisclosed Trip Clarence Thomas Took on a Billionaire's Private Jet'
The
New York Times reported that Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden
(D-Ore.) detailed in a letter to Michael Bopp, an attorney representing
billionaire businessman Harlan Crow, how Thomas
"has never disclosed" round-trip travel by Thomas and his wife,
conservative activist Virginia Thomas, between Hawaii and New Zealand in
November 2010 on Crow's private jet.
"Furthermore,
it was revealed just a few weeks ago that Justice Thomas enjoyed complimentary
use of private jets paid for by Mr. Crow on 17 different occasions since 2016,
with nine of those flights coming in the last three years," Wyden wrote.
"While
Justice Thomas has only recently updated his financial disclosures to include
an eight-day voyage aboard the Michaela Rose in Indonesia in 2019, Justice
Thomas still has not disclosed other trips on the Michaela Rose," the
senator continued, referring to Crow's yacht. "Public reports show
evidence that Justice Thomas was a passenger aboard the Michaela Rose in
Greece, New Zealand, and elsewhere."
Thomas'
2023 disclosure, which was published in June, includes food and lodging during
2019 trips to Bali and Bohemian Grove—a secretive, men-only retreat in Sonoma
County, California—paid for by Crow. The trips and other gifts for Thomas—including yacht excursions,
flights on private jets, and private school tuition for the justice's
grandnephew—were first revealed by ProPublica last year.
Thomas claimed key disclosures were "inadvertently
omitted at the time of filing."
Also
in June, the advocacy group Fix the Court published a database listing 546 total gifts valued at over $4.7
million given to 18 current and former justices mostly between 2004 and 2023,
as identified by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The database also
lists "likely" gifts received by the justices and their estimated
values, bringing the grand total to 672 gifts valued at nearly $6.6 million.
Thomas
led the pack with 193 FTC-identified gifts collectively valued at over $4
million. Of these, he listed only 27 in financial disclosure reports.
Wyden wrote:
I
seek to understand the means and scale of Mr. Crow's undisclosed largesse to
Justice Thomas to inform several pieces of legislation that the committee is
drafting, including but not limited to: reforms to the tax code concerning
filing requirements for gift tax returns, audit requirements for Supreme Court
justices, and comprehensive ethics reform that would strengthen the Ethics in
Government Act and other laws related to the disclosure of complimentary
private jet and yacht travel by Supreme Court justices...
Unfortunately, your prior responses to the committee have done nothing to
address concerns that personal trips aboard Mr. Crow's superyacht and private
jets for lavish vacations, including complimentary private jet travel for
Justice Thomas, may have been used to help Mr. Crow avoid or evade paying
federal taxes. This is not a particularly complicated matter. Mr. Crow could
easily clarify for the committee whether tax deductions were claimed on
superyacht and private jet use by Justice Thomas, but he refuses to do so.
This is particularly troubling in light of the committee's discovery of
additional lavish international travel by Justice Thomas at Mr. Crow's expense
that Justice Thomas has failed to properly disclose.
Wyden's
letter asks Bopp to provide financial statements for Rochelle Charter, the
holding company for the Michaela Rose, and to answer questions including
whether Thomas ever reimbursed Crow for the private jet trip from Hawaii to New
Zealand and other travel.
Last
month, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who chairs a Senate Judiciary
subcommittee on the federal courts and oversight, and Wyden asked the Biden administration to appoint a special
counsel to investigate Thomas for alleged ethics violations.
Government
ethics advocates weighed in on the new revelations.
"These
new reports are as appalling as they are unsurprising," Demand Justice
managing director Maggie Jo Buchanan said in a statement. "Justice Thomas' actions
and—critically—[Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts'] refusal to assure
the public that the court takes these never-ending revelations seriously, shows
the necessity of meaningful and immediate reform."
"Trust
for the Supreme Court remains at historic lows in part because the MAGA
justices openly display their allegiances to wealthy billionaires and partisan
interests instead of the public, whom they are meant to serve," Buchanan
added. "We call on Congress to urgently pass full-scale reform, including
an enforceable code of ethics as President [Joe] Biden proposed last
week."
Biden
called for, and Vice President Kamala Harris—who is replacing the incumbent
atop the Democratic presidential ticket— endorsed reforms including term limits for Supreme
Court justices, an enforceable code of ethics, and a constitutional amendment
reversing the court's decision to grant presidents broad immunity for official acts.
Last
year, the Supreme Court formally announced a new 14-page code of conduct that watchdog groups dismissed as what
the Revolving
Door Project called a "toothless PR stunt."
Brett
Edkins, managing director of policy and political affairs for the advocacy
group Stand Up America, said Monday that "the Supreme Court should be the
gold standard for judicial ethics, yet billionaires like Harlan Crow are buying
the loyalty of justices one private jet flight at a time."
"Our
nation's highest court has become a political plaything for the ultra-wealthy
and well-connected," Edkins added. "Congress must step up as a
co-equal branch of government and tackle the corruption plaguing the court.
It's time for our leaders to restore integrity and transparency to the Supreme
Court by passing a binding code of ethics and term limits."
