Clarence Thomas says trips with billionaires weren’t disclosed at the time

The Journal of Investigating Justice Thomas’s “Hottles on the Supreme Court”: Sen. Ginni Thomas and the Judicial Conference

A new report by ProPublica describes Thomas taking Crow travel tickets to Indonesia, New Zealand, California, Texas and Georgia. Trips like travel on Crow’s yacht or stays at properties owned by Crow or his company were included in the reports. 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.

On Friday, Thomas said that he did not reveal luxury travel paid for by Crow because he was advised at the time that he did not have to. The Judicial Conference has only recently put in place guidelines regarding the disclosure of free trips and other gifts and Thomas believes he will follow it in the future.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, said in a statement the ProPublica report was “a call to action” and that “the Senate Judiciary Committee will act.”

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

The Supreme Court and Crow did not immediately respond to a CNN request for comment, and ProPublica says Thomas did not respond to a list of detailed questions.

Thomas, nominated by former President George H.W. Bush in 1991, is the senior-most justice on the court and an intellectual leader of the current 6-3 conservative majority. The justice and his spouse have been under scrutiny for their political activity, including for texts she exchanged with the people who tried to overturn the election.

On Thomas’ Financial Disclosure Under Recent Amendments to the Disclosure Rule for Personal Hotel Stays: An Ethics Expert Comment on Crow’s Diaries

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

The ProPublica report documents a painting that hangs at the Crows’ Adirondacks property depicting Thomas, Crow and other influential figures in Republican politics, including Leonard Leo, the former Federalist Society head who played a crucial role in Trump’s makeover of the federal bench.

The report said that the heads of major corporations and prominent conservative groups have been on trips with Crow that Thomas has joined.

The bible that was gifted to Thomas was given to him by the Crow family. The portrait of a justice and his wife was given to him by Crow as well as a $105,000 contribution from his foundation for a Justice Thomas Portrait Fund at Yale Law School.

The report comes not long after the federal judiciary’s policy-making body quietly adjusted its interpretation of what justices are required to disclose as part of 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. Under the old guidance, there was some ambiguity about what requires disclosure. For instance, the recent changes clarified that that disclosure was required for personal hospitality subsidized by third parties. That would appear to apply Thomas’ stays at the Adirondack property, because it was owned 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 some information about the trips would have to be disclosed under the new changes. The deadline is the 15th of May, after the gift has been received.

While members of congress are required to report certain financial details about the hotel they use, judges face less strict requirements, according to the leader of Fix the Court.

Democratic Sen. Whitehouse pressed the Administrative Office of the US Courts for clarification of the reporting exemption for personal hotel stays, which was announced in March.

“Who were Thomas’s companions on these free undisclosed vacations, and what interests did those undisclosed companions have before the Court? Whitehouse said on the social networking site that the question was obvious. It’s the Chief Justice’s job to make sure that robust investigation happens.

Clarence Thomas said Friday that he didn’t tell the public that he received luxury travel from a Republican donor because he was told he didn’t have to.

The case against disclosures of evidence in the U.S. supreme court system: a CNN spoke with a judge who sided with Thomas

The controversy shone a light on the judiciary that is being called upon more and more to resolve political disputes.

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 also triggered reaction with another constituency that is rarely heard 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 the public respect for the Supreme Court plummeted because of this. This is a lot bigger than ethics violations. The Supreme Court has a perceived legitimacy.

The federal court system judiciary consists of the nine justices who sit on the highest court in the land, as well as 94 district level trial courts and 13 courts of appeal.

But another judge, also a Republican appointee, sided with Thomas in the dispute, saying that the rules had not been clear and that a committee on the Administrative Office of the US Courts had been working for months to clarify them, only issuing revisions recently.

“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.

It was odd to think of a situation where you are spending time with a close friend and some transportation doesn’t get involved, said the judge. “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

Judicial Conference Guidance for Financial Disclosure from the Family of Harold and Kathy Crow: a Response to a Theoretical Discussion” by Roberts

In a 2011 report, Chief Justice John Roberts addressed critics who say that the Judicial Conference’s Code of Conduct for United States Judges should apply to the Supreme Court.

Roberts acknowledged that the high court members consulted the code of conduct as well as other materials from the court’s legal office. He said the court has no reason to adopt a code of conduct.

“Harlan and Kathy Crow are among our dearest friends, and we have been friends for over twenty-five years. As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips during the more than quarter century we have known them.

I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality 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.

“These guidelines are now being changed, as the committee of the Judicial Conference responsible for financial disclosure for the entire federal judiciary just this past month announced new guidance. And, it is, of course, my intent to follow this guidance in the future.”

The Rise and Fall of the Supreme Court: On the Need for Transparent Ethics in the Courts of the First Lady, Judge Abe Fortas

Editor’s Note: Julian Zelizer, a CNN political analyst, is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author and editor of 25 books, including the New York Times best-seller, “Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Lies and Legends About Our Past” (Basic Books). Follow him on social media. The views expressed are of his own. CNN has more opinion on it.

Somewhere, the late Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas must be shaking his head, wondering how Thomas is getting away with all of this. In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated Fortas to be chief justice. But Republicans and Southern Democrats filibustered the nomination, and used his acceptance of a $15,000 honorarium from American University — a practice that was not unheard of at the time — against him. Fortas decided to withdraw his name from consideration. (Another charge later emerged that Fortas took a $20,000 retainer from a Wall Street financier, who was later imprisoned for securities violations. Fortas, who denied having done anything wrong, resigned from the Supreme Court.

In February, the American Bar Association threw its support behind the idea, warning that “the absence of a clearly articulated, binding code of ethics for the justices of the court imperils the legitimacy of the court.”

And just a few days ago, Senate Democrats — including Maryland’s Chris Van Hollen and Rhode Island’s Sheldon Whitehouse — tried to propose language in next year’s funding bill that would require the Supreme Court to create a transparent process for determining when recusals and ethics investigations were needed.

“It is unacceptable,” Van Hollen said, “that the Supreme Court has exempted itself from the accountability that applies to all other members of our federal courts, and I believe Congress should act to remedy this problem.”

Several top Republicans have expressed their opposition to the plan. As North Dakota Senator John Thune said in 2022, “I’m uncomfortable with the idea of becoming overly prescriptive … particularly on Supreme Court Justices. They generally have pretty good instincts about when to recuse and when not to.”