For more than two decades, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has reportedly accepted luxury trips from Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow without disclosing them on financial disclosure forms, according to ProPublica.
The nonprofit investigative journalism organization chronicles multiple excursions Thomas has taken onboard Crow’s yacht and private jet, as well as to Crow’s private lodge in the Adirondacks, in a lengthy report released Thursday. A vacation to Indonesia in 2019 described in the story may have cost more than $500,000 if Thomas had chartered the jet and yacht himself, according to ProPublica.
With the news came renewed criticism of how the justices self-police and calls for oversight and impeachment of the conservative justice. Like other federal judges, Supreme Court justices are required to file an annual financial disclosure report. This report asks for any gifts received to be included.
According to ProPublica, Thomas failed to disclose the gifts on his annual financial disclosure reports, which, according to ethics experts, violates the federal officials’ code of conduct.
It was unclear why Thomas left out the travels. A court policy manual obtained by The Associated Press shows that food, housing, or entertainment received as “personal hospitality of any individual” and taken place at that person’s or their family’s home is exempt from reporting requirements. However, the exception to reporting is not supposed to cover “transportation that substitutes for commercial transportation” and properties owned by an entity.
Ethical concerns about Thomas’ conduct surfaced last year, when it was revealed that he continued to handle election cases despite his wife, conservative activist Virginia Thomas, contacting lawmakers and the White House to refute the 2020 election results.
In a statement to ProPublica, Crow said that he and his wife have known Thomas and his wife since 1996, five years after he joined the high court. Crow said that 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” and that the couple “never asked for any of this hospitality.”
In addition, Crow said they 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.”
The news is expected to lead to more calls for Supreme Court Justices to adopt an ethics code and improve travel and other gift disclosures.