Clarence Thomas.Photo: ERIN SCHAFF/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Supreme Court JusticeClarence Thomashas for decades been the recipient of “luxury vacations” — some of which would normally cost as much as $500,000 — via billionaire GOP mega-donor Harlan Crow, a newProPublica reportalleges.
The outlet cites annual week-long retreats to Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks, vacations at Crow’s ranch in East Texas, and a nine-day trip that Thomas and his wife took to Indonesia in 2019 — complete with island-hopping aboard super-yachts and private jets.
“For more than two decades,” the outlet reports, “Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them, documents and interviews show.”
As a Supreme Court justice, Thomas has a salary of $285,000. The trips are not included on his financial disclosures, ProPublica reports, which — according to ethics experts the outlet interviewed — could violate a law requiring justices, judges and other public servants to disclose most gifts.
Thomas has not released a statement in the wake of the report, though Crow issued his ownlengthy statementin which he said he and his wife had been “very dear friends” with the Thomases since 1996.
The trips, he added, were personal in nature.
The reports about Justice Thomas raise questions about his ethics and come on the heels of various reports about the actions of his wife,Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, whothe U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riotsfound had communicated with allies of former PresidentDonald Trumpabout overturning the 2020 presidential election results.
In aninterview with the committeelast year, Thomas said she regretted “the tone and content,” of those messages, adding: “it was an emotional time, and I was texting with a friend who I had known a long time. So I really find my language imprudent and my choices of sending the context of these emails unfortunate.”
source: people.com
