More Thomas-donor ties revealed
Texas billionaire paid tuition costs for justice’s relative
WASHINGTON — A Republican megadonor paid two years of private school tuition for a child raised by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who did not disclose the payments, a lawyer who has represented Thomas and his wife acknowledged Thursday.
The revelation of tuition payments made by Dallas billionaire Harlan Crow is the latest example of Crow’s generosity to Thomas and his family that has raised questions about Thomas’ ethics and disclosure requirements more generally. The payments, along with the earlier examples of Crow’s financial ties to Thomas, were first reported by the nonprofit investigative journalism site ProPublica.
ProPublica reported Thursday that Crow paid tuition for Thomas’ greatnephew Mark Martin. Thomas and his wife, Virginia, raised Martin from the age of 6.
Over the past month, ProPublica has reported in other stories about luxury vacations paid for by Crow that the conservative justice took as well as Crow’s purchase of property from the Thomas family, neither of which were disclosed. Democrats have used the revelations to call for stronger ethics rules for the Supreme Court, while Republicans have defended Thomas.
According to the
ProPublica story, Crow paid tuition for Martin at a military boarding school in Virginia, Randolph-Macon Academy, as well as Hidden Lake Academy in Georgia.
ProPublica said Thomas did not respond to questions. Crow’s office responded in a statement to questions but did not address a question about how much he paid in total for Martin’s tuition. He did say that Thomas had not requested the support for either school, ProPublica reported.
A Supreme Court spokeswoman did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press. On Twitter, however, lawyer Mark Paoletta defended Thomas in a statement. Paoletta, a longtime friend ofThomas,calledthestory “another attempt to manufacture a scandal about Justice Thomas.”
In his statement, Paoletta, who is also a former official for the Trump administration, argued that the justice was not required to report the tuition. He pointed to part of a 1978 law that says judges must disclose gifts to dependent children, who are defined as “a son, daughter, stepson or stepdaughter.” Paoletta stressed that by that measure, a greatnephew does not qualify.
But ethics-law experts rejected that argument and said Crow’s gift was to Thomas himself, not the great-nephew, so it was clearly reportable. As the legal guardian of the child, Thomas had assumed responsibility for his education, enrolled him in private school and otherwise would have had to pay tuition.
“There is no ambiguity here,” said Kathleen Clark, an ethics-law expert at Washington University in St. Louis.
“He paid the tuition, which was a gift to Thomas because it helped Thomas financially fulfill his responsibility as guardian,” she said.
Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota professor who was the top ethics lawyer in the George W.
Bush administration, concurred.
“I believe Justice Thomas had legal custody, and they have not disputed that,” Painter said. “It was his prerogative to send the child to private school, but he had to pay for it. That was his debt, like a utility bill or food.”
Stephen Gillers, a legalethics professor at New York University, agreed, saying, “It should have been reported.” He also said the revelation underscored the need for Congress to tighten the rules.
Paoletta also said in his statement that Crow had recommended that Thomas consider Randolph-Macon Academy, which Crow had attended, and had offered to pay for Martin’s first year there in 2006, a payment that went directly to the school. When the school recommended Martin spend a year at Hidden Lake Academy, Crow offered again to pay for that year, a payment that also went directly to the school, Paoletta said.
Thomas became the legal guardian for Martin in the late 1990s. Notably, the justice had earlier accepted a gift of $5,000 from the owner of a pest-control company to help defray the cost of his great-nephew’s schooling and in 2002 reported it on a financial disclosure form as “education gifttoMarkMartin.”
In response to the story, lawmakers in Congress were again divided by party.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who once clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts, said it was “just the latest installment of the left’s multi-decade campaign to target Justice Thomas.”
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said in a statement that with “every new revelation in this case, it becomes clearer that Harlan Crow has been subsidizing an extravagant lifestyle” that Thomas could not otherwise afford.
“This is a foul breach of ethics standards, which are already far too low when it comes to the Supreme Court,” Wyden said.
Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, urged Roberts to take note.
“The reputation of the Supreme Court is at stake here, the credibility of the court when it comes to its future decisions is at stake,” Durbin said.