Pressure grows on Clarence Thomas after more gifts from rightwing donor
The conservative supreme court justice Clarence Thomas faced further controversy on Thursday after the release of his financial disclosure form for 2022 provided evidence of more flights and stays with Harlan Crow, a Republican mega-donor.
Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator from Rhode Island and judiciary committee member, called the form a “late-come effort at ‘clean-up on aisle three’” which would not “deter us from fully investigating the massive, secret, rightwing billionaire influence in which this court is enmired”.
A series of bombshell reports have detailed long relationships between Thomas, rich donors and influential rightwing figures. In the case of Crow, a real-estate baron and collector of Nazi memorabilia, ProPublica has reported gifts of luxury travel and resort stays, a property purchase involving Thomas’s mother and school fees paid for his great-nephew.
Thomas is the senior conservative on a court dominated 6-3 by the right, a majority that has handed down epochal rulings including Dobbs v Jackson, which removed the right to abortion.
From the left, calls for Thomas to resign or be impeached have proliferated. In the Senate, Democrats have advanced supreme court ethics reform. Given that Republicans have sufficient votes to prevent all such actions – and that the chief justice, John Roberts, has rebuffed calls to testify – chances of change seem slim.
Thomas, 75, has denied wrongdoing, saying he was advised he did not need to disclose trips and gifts from rich donors as they were “hospitality from close personal friends”.
His 2022 disclosure form was released on the last day of August after he – and another conservative beset by reporting about donor relationships, Samuel Alito – requested 90-day extensions to the usual deadline. In an unusual move, Thomas’s form included a lengthy defence of previous filings.
In one striking contention, the justice claimed protests over the Dobbs decision, after it leaked in May 2022, justified his use of Crow’s private plane for a trip to Texas to speak at a rightwing conference.
“Because of the increased security risk following the Dobbs opinion leak,” the form said, “the May flights were by private plane for official travel as filer’s
security detail recommended noncommercial travel whenever possible.”
Thomas’s lawyer, Elliot S Berke, said the justice had “always strived for full transparency and adherence to the law, including with respect to what personal travel needed to be reported”.
Berke also criticised “ethics complaints filed against Justice Thomas by leftwing organisations … diametrically opposed to his judicial philosophy” and “leftwing ‘watchdog’ groups … attacking Justice Thomas for alleged ethical violations stemming from his relationships with personal friends who happen to be wealthy”.
In his own statement, Kyle Herrig, senior adviser to the watchdog Accountable.US, said: “It’s no surprise that Justice Thomas has kept up his decades-long cozy relationship with billionaire benefactor Harlan Crow with even more lavish jet rides and vacation reimbursements.
“For years, Thomas has used his position on our nation’s highest court as a way to upgrade his own lifestyle – and that hasn’t stopped.
“… Harlan Crow, Justice Thomas, Leonard Leo, and other key players … may believe they exist above the law, but they don’t. We need accountability and reform now.”
Another court observer, Gabe Roth of Fix the Court, addressed the unusual statement appended to Thomas’s declarations form.
“Justice Thomas’s lengthy explanation as to why he omitted various gifts and free trips on previous disclosures does not countermand his decades of willful obfuscation when it comes to his reporting requirements,” Roth said.
“What’s more, he’s chosen not to update earlier reports with details about the tuition gift, the RV loan” – from Anthony Welters, a healthcare magnate, and first reported by the New York Times – “or his countless private plane fights, all of which were reportable.
“It’s time for the Judicial Conference, as required by the disclosure law, to refer these issues to the [US] justice department for further investigation.”