Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas Secretly Accepted Luxury Trips From Top GOP Donor: Report
April 6 2023, Published 9:10 a.m. ET
A newly revealed investigation launched against Clarence Thomas found that the Supreme Court justice failed to disclose a number of luxury vacations and other amenities secretly provided to him by a billionaire GOP donor, RadarOnline.com has learned.
In a stunning development to come months after Justice Thomas came under fire for backing the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, a new report published by ProPublica on Thursday found that billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow paid for Thomas to take luxury vacations for over 20 years.
ProPublica said these vacations included Thomas joining Crow “to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat, and to Crow’s sprawling ranch in East Texas.”
Thomas has also reportedly spent “a week every summer” for the past two decades at a private resort owned by Crow in the Adirondacks, and the SCOTUS judge has allegedly failed to disclose the secret trips to the public.
Ethics law experts who spoke with ProPublica during their investigation into Thomas indicated that Thomas’ failure to disclose his many trips paid for by Crow directly violated a “law requiring justices, judges, members of Congress and federal officials to disclose most gifts.”
“It’s incomprehensible to me that someone would do this,” said Nancy Gertner, a retired federal judge appointed by President Bill Clinton in the 1990s.
“It was a question of not wanting to use the office for anything other than what it was intended,” she added regarding her own reluctance to use her federal judge title for something as simple as making a dinner reservation.
“When a justice’s lifestyle is being subsidized by the rich and famous, it absolutely corrodes public trust,” added Virginia Canter, a former government ethics lawyer who worked in both Democratic and Republican administrations. “Quite frankly, it makes my heart sink.”
ProPublica revealed they uncovered the details of Justice Thomas’ past 20 years of secret luxury travel paid for by Crow by “drawing from flight records, internal documents distributed to Crow’s employees and interviews with dozens of people” that ranged from Crow’s “superyacht’s staff to members of the secretive Bohemian Club to an Indonesian scuba diving instructor.”
Crow, in a statement released after ProPublica announced their findings this week, insisted neither he nor his wife ever “asked about a pending or lower court case” while vacationing with the now-embattled SCOTUS justice and that Justice Thomas “never discussed” any court cases.
“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,” the Dallas, Texas billionaire real estate developer continued.
“These are gatherings of friends.”
Although Justice Thomas has yet to release a statement regarding ProPublica’s newfound findings, the outlet’s discovery seemingly contradicts the SCOTUS judge’s recent remarks regarding his “preference” for non-luxurious travel.
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“I don’t have any problem with going to Europe, but I prefer the United States, and I prefer seeing the regular parts of the United States,” Thomas said in a recent documentary funded by Crow.
“I prefer the RV parks. I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that. There’s something normal to me about it,” Thomas continued, although he failed to mention his alleged trips to Indonesia and the Adirondacks. “I come from regular stock, and I prefer that — I prefer being around that.”
