CrusaderFrank
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Justice Thomas has been receiving millions of dollars worth of gifts from a billionaire for over 20 years, according to this article in Propublica.
(Mods: Propublica grants permission to republish, so content is not a copyright infringement)
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Clarence Thomas Secretly Accepted Luxury Trips From Major GOP Donor
Island-hopping on a superyacht. Private jet rides around the world. The undisclosed gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the Supreme Court. âItâs incomprehensible to me that someone would do this,â says one former judge.www.propublica.org
Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire
by Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski
In late June 2019, right after the U.S. Supreme Court released its final opinion of the term, Justice Clarence Thomas boarded a large private jet headed to Indonesia. He and his wife were going on vacation: nine days of island-hopping in a volcanic archipelago on a superyacht staffed by a coterie of attendants and a private chef.
If Thomas had chartered the plane and the 162-foot yacht himself, the total cost of the trip could have exceeded $500,000. Fortunately for him, that wasnât necessary: He was on vacation with real estate magnate and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, who owned the jet â and the yacht, too.
For more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them, documents and interviews show. A public servant who has a salary of $285,000, he has vacationed on Crowâs superyacht around the globe. He flies on Crowâs Bombardier Global 5000 jet. He has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat, and to Crowâs sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crowâs private resort in the Adirondacks.
The extent and frequency of Crowâs apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court.
These trips appeared nowhere on Thomasâ financial disclosures. His failure to report the flights appears to violate a law passed after Watergate that requires justices, judges, members of Congress and federal officials to disclose most gifts, two ethics law experts said. He also should have disclosed his trips on the yacht, these experts said.
Thomas did not respond to a detailed list of questions.
In a statement, Crow acknowledged that heâd extended âhospitalityâ to the Thomases âover the years,â but said that Thomas never asked for any of it and it was âno different from the hospitality we have extended to our many other dear friends.â
Through his largesse, Crow has gained a unique form of access, spending days in private with one of the most powerful people in the country. By accepting the trips, Thomas has broken long-standing norms for judgesâ conduct, ethics experts and four current or retired federal judges said.
âItâs incomprehensible to me that someone would do this,â said Nancy Gertner, a retired federal judge appointed by President Bill Clinton. When she was on the bench, Gertner said, she was so cautious about appearances that she wouldnât mention her title when making dinner reservations: âIt was a question of not wanting to use the office for anything other than what it was intended.â
Virginia Canter, a former government ethics lawyer who served in administrations of both parties, said Thomas âseems to have completely disregarded his higher ethical obligations.â
âWhen a justiceâs lifestyle is being subsidized by the rich and famous, it absolutely corrodes public trust,â said Canter, now at the watchdog group CREW. âQuite frankly, it makes my heart sink.â
ProPublica uncovered the details of Thomasâ travel by drawing from flight records, internal documents distributed to Crowâs employees and interviews with dozens of people ranging from his superyachtâs staff to members of the secretive Bohemian Club to an Indonesian scuba diving instructor.
Federal judges sit in a unique position of public trust. They have lifetime tenure, a privilege intended to insulate them from the pressures and potential corruption of politics. A code of conduct for federal judges below the Supreme Court requires them to avoid even the âappearance of impropriety.â Members of the high court, Chief Justice John Roberts has written, âconsultâ that code for guidance. The Supreme Court is left almost entirely to police itself.
Article goes on from there, much more content given.
Only the black guy is on the take. Interesting. Did your white sheets come back from the cleaners?