According to a report by ProPublica, Justice Clarence Thomas accepted trips for free from GOP mega-donors

Ethics in Business: Thomas’s Connection to Harlan Crow’s Private Jet, ProPublica, and the Future of the Senate Judiciary Committee

The new ProPublica report describes Thomas accepting travel hospitality from Crow that included lavish trips to Indonesia, New Zealand, California, Texas and Georgia. Some of these trips included staying at properties owned by Crow or his company. ProPublica also identified what appear to be several trips taken by Thomas on Crow’s private jet that went undisclosed on his public ethics filings, though one Thomas trip on Crow’s jet was disclosed in 1997.

The report of the connection between Thomas and conservative businessman Harlan Crow is already adding to calls that Congress investigate potential ethical lapses. Key Senate Democrats were thinking about using this year’s funding legislation to force the justices to adopt some sort of ethics code.

The story landed with a bang, shaking the political world and immediately eliciting statements of serious concern from legal experts and Washington lawmakers. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, a Democrat, said in a statement that the report was “a call to action.” He said that the Senate Judiciary Committee would act.

Justice Thomas, Ginni, and the Ethics of the Interior: a Newly Revised Report on Crow’s Contribution to Political Activities in the 2000-2020 Presidential Campaign

“Justice Thomas and Ginni never asked for any of this hospitality,” Crow said in the statement. He told us that Justice Thomas has never talked about a pending or lower court case.

ProPublica says Thomas did not reply to a list of detailed questions and that the Supreme Court and Crow did not respond to a CNN request for comment.

The intellectual leader of the current 6-3 conservative majority is justice Thomas, nominated by George H.W. Bush in 1991. The justice has also been the subject of scrutiny for the political activities of his wife, including for texts she exchanged with key players in former President Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Crow, a Dallas businessman with deep connections to Republican politics, has contributed more than $10 million in publicly disclosed political contributions, ProPublica reported.

The painting in question depicts influential figures in Republican politics, including Leonard Leonardo who played a role in Trumps makeover of the federal bench.

Executives of major corporations as well as heads of prominent conservative organizations have been in attendance on trips with Crow that Thomas has joined, the ProPublica report said.

Thomas did disclose on his 2001 filings a $19,000 bible that belonged to Frederick Douglass that was gifted to him by the Crow family. ProPublica describes a portrait of the justice and his wife given to him by Crow as well as donation by Crow’s foundation of $105,000 for a “Justice Thomas Portrait Fund” at Yale Law School, where Thomas is an alumnus.

The report comes after the federal judiciary quietly adjusted its interpretation of what justices are supposed to tell about their gifts and hospitality transparency obligations.

Some court ethics experts told ProPublica that the absence of the trips subsidized by Crow – and particularly the travel on his yacht and jet – on Thomas’ financial disclosure may have run afoul of the disclosure rules. There was some ambiguity about what needs to be disclosed. Changes recently revealed that disclosure was required for personal hospitality subsidized by third parties. It appears that Thomas’ stays at the Adirondack property were taken care of by Crow’s company, ProPublica said.

Stephen Gillers, an ethics expert at New York University School of Law, said in an email to CNN Thursday that prior to the recent amendments to the disclosure guidance, Thomas could claim that, because the invitation came from a person – not a corporation or business entity – it did not need to be reported regardless of the value of the gift.

Gillers said that the newly announced changes would have had to reveal some information about the trips. The gift needs to be reported by May 15 of the year.

Members of Congress are required to report the financial details of their guests and approve sponsored trips, but judges aren’t required to do that. according to the leader of Fix the Court, who advocates for ethics.

The updates to the guidance for disclosure of hotel stays was announced in late March by Sen. Whitehouse, who had pressed the Administrative Office of the US Courts for clarification on what qualifies as a personal hotel stay.

A team of ProPublica reporters earlier this year began looking into the travel of various Supreme Court justices, not entirely sure what they would find, if anything. But after a little digging, the trio of journalists stumbled upon something that piqued their interest.

In fact, what they uncovered raised their eyebrows to such a degree that they believed the discovery was an explosive story in its own right: a trip that Clarence Thomas had taken aboard billionaire Harlan Crow’s private jet between Connecticut and Washington, D.C.

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The team of reporters was encouraged by their editors to keep working on the story, says a member of the team. “So we started grinding,” Elliot explained.

The article was first published in theReliable Sources newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here.

The story grew larger and larger from there. “It snowballed,” Elliot said. The group assembled a spreadsheet that included hundreds of people, contacting potential sources as they built the story.

Easy or not, the final product that published on Thursday morning was unquestionably worth the effort. The bombshell report accused Thomas of accepting luxury vacations and private jet travel from a Republican donor for decades.

What ultimately happens remains to be seen. The impact of the events has underscored the importance of journalism produced by non-profit newsrooms.

I spoke to someone who feels lucky to have the reporting resources and time resources to do a heavy lift like this. There are not that many places where you can do that anymore. So we are grateful to have jobs at ProPublica.

Justice Clarence Thomas Didn’t Report the Luxurious Travel: A Political Uproar from the Highest Courts after the Mueller Confirmation Hearing

Justice Clarence Thomas didn’t report the luxury travel because he wasn’t told he didn’t have to.

The uproar has put a light on the judiciary, which is often called upon to resolve disputes between the political branches of government.

As confirmation hearings have turned into political spectacles and hot-button cases on abortion, gun rights and religious liberty have broken along familiar conservative-liberal ideological lines, critics say the court appears more and more political.

It triggered reaction from federal judges, who serve on the lower courts. Current and retired federal judges don’t normally speak up about internal matters outside the confines of the courtroom, but they agreed to talk to CNN if their names were withheld.

The judge said that public respect for the Supreme Court plummeted because of this. “This is far greater than mere ethics violations. It’s about the perceived legitimacy of the Supreme Court.”

The federal court system has 94 district level trial courts and 13 courts of appeal and nine justices who sit on the highest court in the land.

Another person said that they had been told that they had shared too much information. “The Administrative Office of the United States Courts are concerned with consistency – they want the reports to look the same” the judge said.

“I always thought this area was kind of confusing,” the judge said, adding that regulations concerning what constitutes “personal hospitality” in the rules had never been made clear until a clarification went into effect on March 14.

“Hospitality was never defined, and it seemed odd to think of a situation where you are spending social time with a close friend where at least occasionally some transportation doesn’t get involved,” the judge said. “If I go spending a weekend with my buddies – someone is going to be driving someone where we are going.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/07/politics/clarence-thomas-disclosures-supreme-court/index.html

A Code of Conduct and Financial Disclosure for the Federal Judiciary: A Conversation with Kathy Crow and Harold, Judicial Counsel, and the Thomas Controversy

One government source who has close ties to the judiciary states that the Thomas controversy has reignited a dispute about Supreme Court justices not having a code of conduct that applies to them.

Roberts did concede that the members of the high court “consult” the code of conduct as well as other materials including advice from the court’s legal office. But, he said, the court does not have reason to adopt a code of conduct.

We have been friends with Kathy Crow and her husband, Harold, for 25 years. We have joined them on a number of family trips with them over the last 25 years.

I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, who advised me that this kind of personalhospitality from close personal friends who did not have business before the Court was not reportable. I have endeavored to follow that counsel throughout my tenure, and have always sought to comply with the disclosure guidelines.

The guidance for financial disclosure for the entire federal judiciary was recently announced by the committee of the Judicial Conference. And, it is, of course, my intent to follow this guidance in the future.”