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'Another Day, Another Undisclosed Trip Clarence Thomas Took on a Billionaire's Private Jet': Wyden
"The Supreme Court should be the gold standard for judicial ethics," said one reform advocate, "yet billionaires like Harlan Crow are buying the loyalty of justices one private jet flight at a time."
Aug 05, 2024
New reporting on Monday that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failed to report even more private travel gifted by a Republican mega-donor sparked renewed calls for reforms including a binding code of ethics for members of the nation's highest court.
The New York Timesreported that Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) detailed in a letter to Michael Bopp, an attorney representing billionaire businessman Harlan Crow, how Thomas "has never disclosed" round-trip travel by Thomas and his wife, conservative activist Virginia Thomas, between Hawaii and New Zealand in November 2010 on Crow's private jet.
"Furthermore, it was revealed just a few weeks ago that Justice Thomas enjoyed complimentary use of private jets paid for by Mr. Crow on 17 different occasions since 2016, with nine of those flights coming in the last three years," Wyden wrote.
"While Justice Thomas has only recently updated his financial disclosures to include an eight-day voyage aboard the Michaela Rose in Indonesia in 2019, Justice Thomas still has not disclosed other trips on the Michaela Rose," the senator continued, referring to Crow's yacht. "Public reports show evidence that Justice Thomas was a passenger aboard the Michaela Rose in Greece, New Zealand, and elsewhere."
Thomas' 2023 disclosure, which was published in June, includes food and lodging during 2019 trips to Bali and Bohemian Grove—a secretive, men-only retreat in Sonoma County, California—paid for by Crow. The trips and other gifts for Thomas—including yacht excursions, flights on private jets, and private school tuition for the justice's grandnephew—were first revealed by ProPublica last year. Thomas claimed key disclosures were "inadvertently omitted at the time of filing."
Also in June, the advocacy group Fix the Court published a database listing 546 total gifts valued at over $4.7 million given to 18 current and former justices mostly between 2004 and 2023, as identified by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The database also lists "likely" gifts received by the justices and their estimated values, bringing the grand total to 672 gifts valued at nearly $6.6 million.
Thomas led the pack with 193 FTC-identified gifts collectively valued at over $4 million. Of these, he listed only 27 in financial disclosure reports.
Wyden wrote:
I seek to understand the means and scale of Mr. Crow's undisclosed largesse to Justice Thomas to inform several pieces of legislation that the committee is drafting, including but not limited to: reforms to the tax code concerning filing requirements for gift tax returns, audit requirements for Supreme Court justices, and comprehensive ethics reform that would strengthen the Ethics in Government Act and other laws related to the disclosure of complimentary private jet and yacht travel by Supreme Court justices...
Unfortunately, your prior responses to the committee have done nothing to address concerns that personal trips aboard Mr. Crow's superyacht and private jets for lavish vacations, including complimentary private jet travel for Justice Thomas, may have been used to help Mr. Crow avoid or evade paying federal taxes. This is not a particularly complicated matter. Mr. Crow could easily clarify for the committee whether tax deductions were claimed on superyacht and private jet use by Justice Thomas, but he refuses to do so.
This is particularly troubling in light of the committee's discovery of additional lavish international travel by Justice Thomas at Mr. Crow's expense that Justice Thomas has failed to properly disclose.
Wyden's letter asks Bopp to provide financial statements for Rochelle Charter, the holding company for the Michaela Rose, and to answer questions including whether Thomas ever reimbursed Crow for the private jet trip from Hawaii to New Zealand and other travel.
Last month, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who chairs a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on the federal courts and oversight, and Wyden asked the Biden administration to appoint a special counsel to investigate Thomas for alleged ethics violations.
Government ethics advocates weighed in on the new revelations.
"These new reports are as appalling as they are unsurprising," Demand Justice managing director Maggie Jo Buchanan said in a statement. "Justice Thomas' actions and—critically—[Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts'] refusal to assure the public that the court takes these never-ending revelations seriously, shows the necessity of meaningful and immediate reform."
"Trust for the Supreme Court remains at historic lows in part because the MAGA justices openly display their allegiances to wealthy billionaires and partisan interests instead of the public, whom they are meant to serve," Buchanan added. "We call on Congress to urgently pass full-scale reform, including an enforceable code of ethics as President [Joe] Biden proposed last week."
Biden called for, and Vice President Kamala Harris—who is replacing the incumbent atop the Democratic presidential ticket— endorsed reforms including term limits for Supreme Court justices, an enforceable code of ethics, and a constitutional amendment reversing the court's decision to grant presidents broad immunity for official acts.
Last year, the Supreme Court formally announced a new 14-page
code of conduct that watchdog groups dismissed as what the Revolving Door Project called a "toothless PR stunt."
Brett Edkins, managing director of policy and political affairs for the advocacy group Stand Up America, said Monday that "the Supreme Court should be the gold standard for judicial ethics, yet billionaires like Harlan Crow are buying the loyalty of justices one private jet flight at a time."
"Our nation's highest court has become a political plaything for the ultra-wealthy and well-connected," Edkins added. "Congress must step up as a co-equal branch of government and tackle the corruption plaguing the court. It's time for our leaders to restore integrity and transparency to the Supreme Court by passing a binding code of ethics and term limits."
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'Ethical Nightmare': House Democrats Demand Alito Recuse From Trump Cases
"The fact of such a political statement at your home creates, at minimum, the appearance of improper political bias."
May 21, 2024
Citing recent reporting that an inverted American flag—an alleged symbol of the "Stop the Steal" election denialism stoked by former U.S. President Donald Trump—was flown at the home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito following January 6, 2021, 45 House Democrats on Tuesday demanded his recusal from all cases involving the right-wing insurrection or 2020 presidential contest.
Earlier this month, The New York Timesrevealed that the inverted flag flew in front of Alito's home in Alexandria, Virginia during the period between the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters and the inauguration of President Joe Biden.
"It is incontrovertible that at the time the upside-down flag flew from your front lawn, 'Stop the Steal' activists had adopted the inverted flag as their symbol of protest. Their belief that widespread election fraud had thrown the election from former President Trump to then-President-Elect Biden has never been supported by any evidence," a letter signed by the Democrats states.
The lawmakers cite a section of the U.S. Flag Code—which is legally unenforceable—barring the display of inverted American flags "except as a signal of dire distress in instance of extreme danger to life or property."
"No such dire distress was in existence at the time the inverted flag flew from your front yard," the letter notes. "Indeed, your own public statement attempts to pass responsibility to your wife, but you nonetheless acknowledge that it was a political statement in support of Donald Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 election."
Alito told the Times he "had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag," which he said "was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor's use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs."
The lawmakers' letter continues:
Even if you had "no involvement" in the display yourself, the fact of such a political statement at your home creates, at minimum, the appearance of improper political bias. According to Canon 5 of the recently promulgated, non-binding, non-enforceable U.S. Supreme Court ethics guidelines, on which you are listed as a signatory, a justice "should refrain from political activity." In fact, the court's own employee guidelines explicitly prohibit public displays of political views—including yard signs and bumper stickers—because they create an appearance of a conflict of interest...
In Canon 3B, the guidelines declare that "a justice should disqualify himself or herself in a proceeding in which the justice's impartiality might reasonably be questioned, that is, where an unbiased and reasonable person who is aware of all relevant circumstances would doubt that the justice could fairly discharge his or her duties."
There are currently two cases related to January 6 and the 2020 election before the court. Trump v. United Statesconcerns the presumptive 2024 GOP nominee's claim he has absolute presidential immunity for any official acts—in this case, trying to subvert the 2020 election—while Fischer v. United States is about whether January 6 insurrections committed felony obstruction of an official proceeding.
"Sadly, you are now the second justice who has demonstrated at least an appearance of a conflict of interest related to the events surrounding the January 6 insurrection," the letter laments. "In the aftermath of the 2020 election, text messages revealed that Virginia 'Ginni' Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, was actively strategizing with the White House chief of staff about how to overturn the election results and attending the January 6 'Stop the Steal' rally—precisely the same underlying conduct charged in Trump and Fischer."
"Although Justice Thomas seemingly acknowledged this conflict of interest by recusing himself from the court's case related to Trump attorney John Eastman, he has shockingly refused to recuse himself from Trump and Fischer," the lawmakers noted.
"Undoubtedly, public trust and confidence in the Supreme Court is in shambles, which jeopardizes our democracy and the rule of law upon which it is based. And given that your decisions in Trump and Fischer will profoundly affect the future of a past and potentially future president, and of democracy itself, it is essential that the court attempt to bolster the public's trust in the integrity of the court," the letter to Alito states.
"In order to protect the legitimacy of the court's ultimate decision in these historic cases," it concludes, "it is clear that both you and Justice Thomas must recuse yourselves from participating any further in these, or any other cases, related to January 6 or the 2020 election."
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'Corruption. Plain and Simple': Ginni Thomas Took Secret Payments Ahead of Landmark Voting Rights Case
"When you're saying things like 'No mention of Ginni, of course' when talking about paperwork for the wife of a Supreme Court Justice—you're probably doing a crime."
May 05, 2023
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni Thomas are under fresh scrutiny as yet another revelation, this one reported by the Washington Post on Thursday evening shows Ginni received tens of thousands of dollars in off-the-book compensation from a powerful right-wing nonprofit shortly before the group "soon would have an interest before the court"—a pivotal voting rights case.
Based on documents reviewed by the Post, right-wing judicial activist Leonard Leo used his role as an advisor to the nonprofit, the Judicial Education Project, to ask GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway, later a top aide to President Donald Trump, to pay Ginni Thomas a large sum but keep her name off the financial records.
"Leo, a key figure in a network of nonprofits that has worked to support the nominations of conservative judges," the reporting explains, "told Conwaythat he wanted her to 'give' Ginni Thomas 'another $25K,' the documents show. He emphasized that the paperwork should have 'No mention of Ginni, of course.'"
"Leonard Leo has written the definition of court corruption. These shady schemes are a call to action to bring about ethics reform at the highest levels of the judiciary." —Kyle Herrig, Accountable.US
In response to the new revelations, Kyle Herrig, president of the public interest advocacy group Accountable.US, said "Leonard Leo has written the definition of court corruption. These shady schemes are a call to action to bring about ethics reform at the highest levels of the judiciary."
In defense of the secrecy of the payments to Ginni Thomas's firm—which according to the Post totaled $80,000 between June 2011 and June 2012, but may have been more overall—Leo said in a statement to the newspaper that it was necessary to keep her name out of any disclosures because of how "disrespectful, malicious and gossipy people" can be in the political sphere.
"I have always tried to protect the privacy of Justice Thomas and Ginni," Leo claimed.
"Each day that passes, the Supreme Court is looking less like a bench and more like an auction house. Thomas should resign immediately..." —Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Crucially, months after these payments were made to Ginni Thomas, the Judicial Education Project filed an amicus brief in the case Shelby County v. Holder, taking the side of those opposed to a key provision in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. As the Post notes:
The court struck down a formula in the Voting Rights Act that determined which states had to obtain federal clearance before changing their voting rules and procedures. Clarence Thomas was part of the 5-to-4 majority.
Thomas issued a concurring opinion in the case, arguing that the preclearance requirement itself is unconstitutional. Thomas's opinion, which was consistent with a previous opinion he wrote, favored the outcome the Judicial Education Project and several other conservative organizations had advocated in their amicus briefs. He did not cite the Judicial Education Project brief.
But progressive political observers said the corruption was impossible not to see—especially given the wave of revelations about lavish gifts and financial arrangements between Justice Thomas and billionaire Harlan Crow, a right-wing mega-donor.
\u201cWhen you\u2019re saying things like \u201cNo mention of Ginni, of course\u201d when talking about paperwork for the wife of a Supreme Court Justice\u2014you\u2019re probably doing a crime.\u201d— Sawyer Hackett (@Sawyer Hackett) 1683245356
"This is corruption. Plain and simple," said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in reaction to the latest revelation. "And each day that passes, the Supreme Court is looking less like a bench and more like an auction house. Thomas should resign immediately and Roberts should see to it that he does."
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