Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas Friday defended his failure to disclose taking decades of luxury vacations from a Republican megadonor.
The conservative judge insisted in a rare public statement that he believed the over-the-top freebie trips did not have to be included on required financial disclosure forms.
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In the statement, Thomas said that early in his time on the court he “was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends who do not have business before the court was not reportable.”
Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images)
Thomas claimed that advice came from “colleagues and others in the judiciary.” He did not name those who supposedly told him he did not need to disclose the gifts.
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Thomas pointed to newly enacted ethics guidelines for all federal judges and officials that tightened disclosure requirements, and said he plans to be more forthcoming going forward. “It is my intention to comply with this guidance in the future,” Thomas said.
The unusual statement from Thomas came a day after a report in Pro Publica revealed that the judge has taken all-expenses-paid trips from billionaire Harlan Crow, a powerful donor to right-wing causes.
Harlan Crow attends a book release reception by The George W. Bush Institute for “The 4 Percent Solution: Unleashing the Economic Growth America Needs,” on July 17, 2012, in Dallas. (LM Otero/AP)
Thomas and his wife, Ginni, have taken extravagant trips on Crow’s dime almost every year for about two decades.
One of the luxury trips took place in 2019, when the Thomases flew to Indonesia on Crow’s jet and used his 162-foot yacht to visit a string of picturesque volcanic islands. The trip could have been worth more than $500,000, ProPublica reported.
Clarence Thomas takes an annual weeklong summer trip to Camp Topridge, Crow’s 105-acre private retreat in the Adirondacks, where photos have shown him rubbing elbows with right-wing political operatives and business titans.
The Thomases have been under a harsh spotlight in recent months because of the judge’s refusal to recuse himself from cases involving former President Donald Trump’s scheme to overturn the 2020 election. His wife Ginni, a conservative activist, lobbied state election officials in an effort to overturn the election’s results.
Richard Painter, a White House ethics adviser to former President George W. Bush, called Thomas’s claims outrageous and said the judge brazenly violated disclosure rules.
“This is just unacceptable when it comes to a justice of the Supreme Court, which makes decisions that are binding on the rest of Americans,” Painter said on CNN. “Clearly it is a problem.”
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Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, left, sits with his wife, conservative activist Virginia Thomas, while he waits to speak at the Heritage Foundation on Oct. 21, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Drew Angerer/Getty)
He said Thomas was obliged to disclose all travel that others paid for and mocked Thomas’ assertion that the junkets didn’t count because he went on Crow’s yacht or private plane.
“If they buy you a first-class airline ticket to the Bahamas they can’t get around that by putting you on a private jet and saying that is ‘hospitality’ because the billionaire owns the jet,” Painter said. “This is simply evasion of the basic requirement of disclosure.”
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas defends undisclosed luxury vacations paid for by GOP megadonor Harlan Crow
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