Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (l.) and billionaire Harlan Crow.
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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas omitted from his annual financial disclosures at least three private jet trips given to him by major Republican donor Harlan Crow, a top Senate Democrat claimed Thursday.
Those trips included private flights in 2017, 2019 and 2021, which Thomas did not disclose, according to Illinois Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin.
Durbin’s office said it obtained documents showing the trips after the Judiciary panel approved a subpoena for Crow in November as part of a Supreme Court ethics investigation.
Crow’s office told CNBC that it had an agreement to provide the committee with relevant information over a seven-year period in exchange for the panel dropping its investigation into the real estate tycoon.
“Despite his serious and ongoing concerns about the legality and necessity of the investigation, Mr. Crow has engaged in good faith negotiations with the committee from the outset to resolve the matter,” his office said in a statement.
The documents revealed a private flight on May 5, 2017, that took Thomas from St. Louis, Missouri, to Kalispell, Montana, and a return flight to Dallas, Texas, on May 9, the senator’s office said in a news release.
Crow’s documents also showed round-trip flights from Washington, D.C., to Savannah, Georgia, on March 23, 2019, and to and from D.C. to San Jose, Calif., on June 29, 2021, Durbin’s office said.
The Senate’s investigation of the Supreme Court “makes crystal clear that the highest court needs an enforceable code of conduct because its members continue to choose not to meet the moment,” Durbin said in a statement.
Spokespeople for Thomas and the Supreme Court did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
The Justice chairman released the information less than a week after Thomas amended his 2019 financial disclosure report to include trips to Bali, Indonesia, and Monte Rio, California, which he accepted from Crow that year.
Thomas said in his most recent disclosure that those two trips were “inadvertently omitted” at the time.
ProPublica first exposed it last year, reporting in a bombshell investigation that the Bali trip could have exceeded $500,000 if the conservative justices had paid for it themselves. Thomas’ change in last week’s disclosure did not say how much the trips were worth.
Thomas’ lawyer, Elliot Berke, said in August 2023 that the judiciary correctly followed court orders, which at the time did not require him to disclose the transport.
Durbin’s new information also follows a recent analysis by the justice reform group Fix the Court, which found that Thomas accepted millions of dollars in gifts during his more than three decades on the nation’s highest court.
That number exceeds the combined value of all gifts received by the eight other current justices, Fix the Court’s analysis found.
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The court announced a code of conduct in November that aims to clear up any “misunderstanding” that its nine life-appointed members consider themselves not to be bound by ethical rules.
But the document, which provides no obvious enforcement action, has done little to silence the court’s chorus of mostly Democratic critics. Their discontent has only grown as the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, prepares to hand down major rulings related to former President Donald Trump.
Durbin said Thursday that the committee will continue to push for legislation that would impose new ethical and financial rules on the court as long as Chief Justice John Roberts refuses to adopt an enforceable code of conduct.
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2024-06-13 20:16:13
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