April 06, 2023 11:20 AM UTC

How Justice Clarence Thomas Beats The High Cost of Living

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• by: Colorado Pols

A story from a team of investigative reporters at ProPublica is rocking the halls of power today in Washington, D.C., with Democrats calling for the impeachment or resignation of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas after revelations of hundreds of thousands of dollars in undisclosed gifts from a Republican billionaire donor over the course of many years:

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 Crow’s superyacht around the globe. He flies on Crow’s Bombardier Global 5000 jet. He has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat, and to Crow’s sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks.

The extent and frequency of Crow’s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court.

These trips appeared nowhere on Thomas’ 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…

The close involvement of Justice Thomas’ wife Ginni Thomas in Donald Trump’s failed 2021 coup attempt was itself the biggest scandal involving a Supreme Court Justice in our lifetimes, but potentially violating federal disclosure laws for so many years and to such a lofty sum of money places this new case in a category of its own. As the Washington Post reports, the calls for Thomas’ metaphorical head are growing quickly:

“This cries out for the kind of independent investigation that the Supreme Court — and only the Supreme Court, across the entire government — refuses to perform,” tweeted Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who has sponsored legislation that would direct the court to adopt an ethics code.

“Is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas corrupt? I don’t know,” Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), a member of the House leadership team, said in a tweet. “But his secretive actions absolutely have the appearance of corruption. … For the good of the country, he should resign.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who has previously called for Thomas to step down, renewed her call Thursday, saying “[t]his degree of corruption is shocking — almost cartoonish.”

Although the U.S. House is narrowly controlled by the GOP, there’s no love lost between Kevin McCarthy and the Thomases. Will these new revelations of Justice Thomas jetting across the globe on a billionaire megadonor’s dime without ever disclosing the largesse be enough to shock a scandal-numbed Washington, D.C. into action? Is accountability at this level of government, a lifetime appointed U.S. Supreme Court Justice, still possible? Or is post-Trump America ready to shrug off old-school corruption on the U.S. Supreme Court?

Looks like we’re about to find out.