Sen. Whitehouse blasts judiciary for failing to police corruption

"By all appearances, the judicial branch is shirking its statutory duty to hold a Supreme Court justice accountable for ethics violations"

Jake Johnson for Common Dreams

By Ann Telnaes

Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse slammed the policy-setting body of the U.S. judiciary for declining his request to refer Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to the Department of Justice over the right-wing judge's repeated failure to disclose luxury trips taken on the dime of billionaire benefactors.

Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the decision by the Judicial Conference "contains a number of inconsistencies and strange claims, and ultimately doesn't address the only real question the Judicial Conference should've been focused on for the nearly two years it's spent on this matter: Is there reasonable cause to believe that Justice Thomas willfully broke the disclosure law?"

"By all appearances," Whitehouse added, "the judicial branch is shirking its statutory duty to hold a Supreme Court justice accountable for ethics violations."

In a letter to Whitehouse on Thursday, Judicial Conference Secretary Robert Conrad wrote that Thomas "has filed amended financial disclosure statements" addressing his past failure to divulge trips and other gifts funded by billionaires, including GOP megadonor Harlan Crow. Thomas has insisted he did not know he was required to disclose such gifts, a claim that Whitehouse and other critics have met with deep skepticism.

Conrad also expressed doubt that the Judicial Conference has the power to refer Supreme Court justices to the Justice Department, even as he acknowledged the body's referral authority under 5 U.S.C. § 13106(b).

That statute says the Judicial Conference "shall refer to the attorney general the name of any individual which such official or committee has reasonable cause to believe has willfully failed to file a report or has willfully falsified or willfully failed to file information required to be reported."

In April 2023, Whitehouse and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) urged the Judicial Conference to "step in and refer Justice Thomas to the attorney general for investigation" after ProPublicarevealed that in addition to funding luxury trips, Crow purchased property from the judge.

Thomas did not disclose the transaction, a failure that Whitehouse and Johnson characterized as "part of an apparent pattern of noncompliance with disclosure requirements."

"There is at least reasonable cause to believe that Justice Thomas intentionally disregarded the disclosure requirement to report the sale of his interest in the Savannah properties in an attempt to hide the extent of his financial relationship with Crow," the Democratic lawmakers wrote in their 2023 letter to the Judicial Conference.

The body's decision Thursday came days after the Senate Judiciary Committee uncovered two additional private jet and yacht trips Thomas took in 2021 at Crow's expense.

"It's clear that the justices are losing the trust of the American people at the hands of a gaggle of fawning billionaires," Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement last month after his panel released a report on the Supreme Court's "ethical crisis."

The report accuses the Judicial Conference of failing "to adequately respond to the Supreme Court's ethical challenges," noting that the body's September 2024 changes to disclosure requirements "are oddly specific in expanding the personal hospitality exemption and seem more likely to absolve past misconduct and facilitate the acceptance of future largesse than strengthen judicial ethics."