Thomas said Friday that he did not disclose extravagance travel paid for by a Republican donor because he was advised at the time that he did not have a report of it.
Justice Thomas Says Trips With Billionaire Didn’t Need To Be Disclosed At The Time (Photo by: NPR)
He Didn’t Need To Be Disclosed
In the occasional announcement sent via the Supreme Court’s public knowledge office, Thomas said that the trips he and his wife, hidebound activists Ginni Thomas, put up with with the contributor Harlan Crow and his wife – whom Thomas portrays as amongst his relatives “dear friends” – were the “sort of emotional hospitality from close personal companions” that he was urged did not require revelation.
The ProPublica report described a portrait hanging at a New York property owned by Crow’s company that depicts Thomas, Crow, and other influential figures in Republican politics, including Leo, the former Federalist Society head who played a crucial role in former President Donald Trump’s makeover of the federal bench. They are sitting together smoking cigars in the painting. The report says that some trips Thomas took with the Crows were also attended by executives of major corporations as well as a leader of a conservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute. Crow himself sits on the board of AEI, ProPublica said, and the think tank’s scholars have occasionally filed friend-of-court briefs in Supreme Court cases.
The trips, valued in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, included travel through Indonesia aboard Crow’s 162-foot yacht, summer vacations at his luxurious New York resort, and flights on his private plane. The revelations prompted renewed calls for a code of conduct that would bind Supreme Court justices. Justice Thomas’s Travels Highlight Gaps in Disclosure Rules Thomas described Crow and his wife Kathy as “among our dearest friends.” He said they had taken “several family trips” together over a quarter century. The 74-year-old justice pointed to recent changes made to the gift-reporting guidelines issued by the Judicial Conference, which makes policy for the federal judiciary. Those changes narrowed the exemption for “personal hospitality,” clarifying that a broader array of trips should be reported going forward.
