August 31, 2023
Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas confirmed on paper – what we already knew.
He did in fact accept trips on private planes, lavish vacations and real estate deals from a conservative mega donor that he didn’t originally disclose.
Justice Thomas filed this 2022 financial disclosure form today – after asking for an extension back in May. The form shows three of the four “reimbursements” came from Harlan Crow. He’s the conservative billionaire mega donor who has been friends with the Thomases for years. They include, flying on private planes, meals and lodging on crow’s dime to speak at conservative conferences and a six day vacation at Crow’s luxurious Adirondacks estate.
Justice Thomas says he flew private in May of 2022 because of increased security concerns following the leak of the opinion that ultimately overturned Roe vs. Wade and said he flew private again February because of an unexpected ice storm.
The document also discloses new details about justice Thomas’s finances from prior years that he says he “inadvertently” omitted from earlier financial disclosure forms. That includes the $133,000 Harlan Crow paid Justice Thomas in 2014 to purchase all three of Thomas’s family homes in Georgia. The Justice also disclosed the sale of two other Georgia properties in 2014 that he was using as rentals. He says both of these real estate transactions were a “capital loss.”
Justice Thomas said his only non-investment income in 2022 was $12,000 from the Antonin Scalia law school.
As I have reported before, there is no formal code of ethics for the supreme court. There is no paper that lists what ethically the justices can and can’t do. All public servants – including Congress, the President *and* the Justices are required to publicly disclose gifts, travel and income they receive so the American people can see exactly where there could be any “influence” from outside sources. But for the supreme court that line is very blurry and the only reason we found out about these particular gifts and travel for justice Thomas months ago is because of investigative reporting from Pro Publica. This issue with justice Thomas has also prompted congress to controversially consider imposing some kind of ethics reform on the court – a move that – so far – the court has resisted.
Read Justice Thomas’s financial disclosure form here.
