In a statement to ProPublica, Crow said, “The hospitality we have extended to the Thomas’s over the years is no different from the hospitality we have extended to our many other dear friends.”
Thomas and his wife, Ginni Thomas, “never asked” for any of the gifts, nor for any of the contributions the Crows have made to projects celebrating the justice’s “life and legacy,” the megadonor said. Crow added that he and his wife “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, a Texas real estate magnate, became friends with Thomas after he joined the Supreme Court. He has given more than $10 million in publicly disclosed political donations, and unknown amounts to groups that aren’t required to reveal their donors, ProPublica reported.
Thomas typically spends about a week each summer at Topridge, Crow’s private lakeside resort in the Adirondacks, and flight records show he has used Crow’s plane numerous times, according to the news outlet.
In 2019, shortly after the court shared its final opinion of the term, Clarence and Ginni Thomas took off on Crow’s private jet for a nine-day vacation in Indonesia aboard the donor’s yacht — a trip that cost more than $500,000, according to ProPublica.
Supreme Court justices are constrained by fewer ethical restrictions than lower rungs of the judiciary. Some groups have called to implement a code of ethics for the high court.
But justices still submit financial disclosures, and experts say they are required to disclose all gifts valued at more than $415. While there are exceptions to that requirement, transportation is not one of them.
“If Justice Thomas received free travel on private planes and yachts, failure to report the gifts is a violation of the disclosure law,” Kedric Payne, senior ethics director for the Campaign Legal Center, told the outlet.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., later Thursday morning called for an “enforceable code of conduct” for Supreme Court justices as he slammed Thomas over the reported secret trips.
“The highest court in the land shouldn’t have the lowest ethical standards,” Durbin said in response to the report. “This behavior is simply inconsistent with the ethical standards the American people expect of any public servant, let alone a Justice on the Supreme Court.”
Read the full report from ProPublica.
Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/06/clarence-thomas-took-gop-megadonor-harlan-crow-secret-luxury-trips-report.html