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Clarence Thomas Finally Reports Gifts He Says Were 'Inadvertently Omitted' From Disclosures
"The fact that he omitted the plane to Indonesia and the yacht... leads me to believe he and I have very different interpretations of his disclosure responsibilities, and that's a problem," said one campaigner.
Jun 07, 2024
Far-right U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has officially—and belatedly—disclosed two luxury vacations gifted him by a billionaire Republican megadonor as eight of the nine high court judges released their financial disclosure statements on Friday.
Thomas' 2023 disclosure includes food and lodging during 2019 trips to Bali, Indonesia and Bohemian Grove—a secretive, men-only retreat in Sonoma County, California—paid for by billionaire real estate developer Harlan 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.
In his 2023 disclosure, Thomas claims information about the 2019 trips was "inadvertently omitted at the time of filing," and that the justice "sought and received guidance from his accountant and ethics counsel" as he prepared this year's report.
This fits a pattern: In 2011, Thomas attributed his failure to disclose his wife's income to a "misunderstanding of the filing instructions." In 2023, he said he "inadvertently failed to realize" that he needed to publicly disclose a real estate deal with Crow.
"The fact that he omitted the plane to Indonesia and the yacht around Indonesia leads me to believe he and I have very different interpretations of his disclosure responsibilities, and that's a problem," Gabe Roth, executive director of the watchdog Fix the Court, told The Washington Post.
The justices' disclosures also show that three members of the court—Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—received six-figure payments for book deals.
"Each justice would be capable of earning 10 times their current salary in the private sector, so it's reasonable for them to want to boost their income as authors, especially those with inspiring life stories," said Roth. "This may be an unpopular opinion, but I don't see anything ethically compromising about it so long as the justices don't use their offices to hawk books, they speak to ideologically diverse audiences on their book tours, and they recuse from petitions involving their publishers."
Jackson also took four tickets to a Beyoncé concert worth over $3,700.
"Justice Jackson is 'Crazy in Love' with Beyoncé's music. Who isn't?" Supreme Court spokesperson Patricia McCabe told The Washington Post.
But Roth said that "next time... Justice Jackson should pay for her own Beyoncé tickets."
Justice Sonia Sotomayor was paid $1,900 to voice an animated version of herself on the PBS children's show "Alma's Way." Justice Elena Kagan was reimbursed for travel, lodging, and food by Notre Dame Law School following a speech she delivered there last September. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh did not receive any gifts last year, according to their disclosure forms. Justice Samuel Alito was again granted an extension to file.
The justices' disclosures came a day after Fix the Court published a database listing 672 gifts worth nearly $6.6 million that current and former Supreme Court judges received, mostly since 2004. Thomas accounted for 193 gifts with an estimated value of more than $4 million that were identified by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.
The disclosures also came in the same week that Congressman Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) introduced the Supreme Court Ethics and Investigations Act, which would create a Supreme Court Office of Investigative Counsel tasked with investigating ethical improprieties and reporting them to Congress.
A code of conduct officially endorsed by the Supreme Court last November was widely panned as a toothless public relations stunt.
Thomas' gifts from wealthy donors—and his failure to report them—have driven calls for his recusal from some cases and even his resignation or impeachment.
Responding to Fix the Court's database, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) noted Friday that former Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas "resigned in shame" in 1969 "over a payment that was less than a tiny fraction of what Clarence Thomas has taken from his billionaire pals."
"Republicans are protecting this obvious corruption by blocking any attempt to hold Thomas accountable," Wyden added.
Citing a "moral failure," the nonpartisan group Veterans for Responsible Leadership asserted Friday that "Clarence Thomas needs to face impeachment."
"Failing to disclose those gifts is an acknowledgment he knew it was wrong," the group added. "The character of the court needs to be above reproach, so he must be shown the door."
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Database Reveals 'Staggering' $6.6 Million in Gifts to Supreme Court Justices
"The Supreme Court's gifts shouldn't be a secret—Congress must pass a binding code of ethics now," said one advocate.
Jun 07, 2024
U.S. Supreme Court justices have received millions of dollars in gifts over the past two decades—with far-right Justice Clarence Thomas being the main beneficiary of this largesse, according to a detailed analysis published Thursday.
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.
The database was published a day before the justices are expected to release their financial disclosure reports.
"Supreme Court justices should not be accepting gifts, let alone the hundreds of freebies worth millions of dollars they've received over the years," Fix the Court executive director Gabe Roth said in a statement Thursday.
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.
According to Fix the Court, Thomas' gifts consisted mainly of
free trips to Bohemian Grove—a secretive, men-only retreat in Northern California—and Topridge, the private lakeside resort in upstate New York owned by billionaire Republican megadonor Harlan Crow.
By dollar amount, the late Justice Antonin Scalia came in a distant second with 67 gifts worth over $210,000 combined, while Justice Samuel Alito took 16 gifts valued collectively at just over $170,000. At the low end of the database, Justice Brett Kavanaugh received a single gift worth $100, while former Justice David Souter was also given one gift with a value of $349.
According to the analysis:
The tally includes the amount of principal and interest—$253,686—we believe Tony Welters forgave in 2008 for the luxury RV he gifted to Thomas the decade before. FTC's numbers include the tuition gifts, $144,400 across six years, Thomas received for his grandnephew... It captures the value of Thomas' yacht trips to Russia, the Greek Isles, and Indonesia, as well as some new information on the Thomas flights Tony Novelly paid for and the Scalia and Alito fishing trips Robin Arkley paid for that's included in the congressional record. The value of the gifts Scalia received on his ill-fated trip to Marfa, Texas, in 2016 are also included.
"Public servants who make four times the median local salary, and who can make millions writing books on any topic they like, can afford to pay for their own vacations, vehicles, hunting excursions, and club memberships," said Roth, "to say nothing of the influence the gift-givers are buying with their 'generosity.'"
"The ethics crisis at the court won't begin to abate until justices adopt stricter gift acceptance rules," he added.
Thomas' gifts from billionaire Republican donors—and his refusal to report them—have fueled calls for his recusal from some cases and even resignation.
Following intense public pressure, the Supreme Court last November announced it had formally adopted a code of conduct that was promptly slammed as a "toothless PR stunt" by the watchdog Revolving Door Project and others.
"The ethics crisis at the court won't begin to abate until justices adopt stricter gift acceptance rules."
"Headline after headline about Supreme Court justices accepting lavish vacations and eye-poppingly expensive gifts is bound to erode trust in the court," U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said on social media Wednesday. "We need to pass the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act and enforce a real code of ethics."
Fix the Court and other groups also support the Supreme Court Ethics and Investigations Act, which was introduced earlier this week by Congressman Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) and would create a Supreme Court Office of Investigative Counsel tasked with investigating ethical improprieties and reporting them to Congress.
Reacting to the new analysis, the pro-democracy group Stand Up America said, "The Supreme Court's gifts shouldn't be a secret—Congress must pass a binding code of ethics now."
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Docs on Supreme Court Justices' Travel Fuel Reform Demands
The head of Fix the Court noted that "the two justices whose comings and goings are probably of the most interest to the general public appear to be shielding some of that travel."
Feb 22, 2024
More than 4,000 pages of federal records turned over to Fix the Court and released by FTC on Thursday sparked fresh concerns about U.S. Supreme Court members' travel—particularly that of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas.
FTC, which advocates for reforming the high court, submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the U.S. Marshals Service for former and current members' activities covered by the USMS—which typically takes over security from Supreme Court Police when a justice leaves the Washington, D.C. area—from January 1, 2018 to September 30, 2022.
"From SCOTUSMap, press reports, our research, and USMS documents, the justices appear to have taken part in 644 activities during the nearly five years covered by the FOIA," the nonprofit noted. Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor's "name appears most often in the USMS documents, as the years of FTC's request coincided with a book tour that took her to a dozen states and several foreign countries."
"There remain a ton of justices' activities that the public does not know about or only learns about years after the fact. What are they trying to hide?"
The group put together a 38-page document detailing justices' activities, which included: "A trip to Bohemian Grove. A birthday party at Lincoln Center. Religious services at a Brooklyn theater. Annual vacations to Colorado. Dialing in to oral argument from Florida. 'Business meetings.' A meeting with a congressman."
While the total figure includes over 200 activities new to FTC, the group highlighted that it is "most definitely an undercount given the lack of USMS coverage for two of them—one of whom travels to Maine each summer and the other we're certain took several up-until-recently-unreported trips."
"Not one of the public or private engagements, vacations, or layovers described in the documents was a Justice Thomas event. None were Chief Justice Roberts events either," FTC explained. "It is unclear if the two justices' security details are being wholly provided by the exempt-from-FOIA Supreme Court Police... if they're employing private security; or if there's some combination thereof."
Courthouse News Service reported that "the Supreme Court's public information office did not respond to questions about Roberts' and Thomas' use of alternative security services."
Meanwhile, FTC executive director Gabe Roth sounded the alarm about the lack of information on the pair of conservatives.
"The two justices whose comings and goings are probably of the most interest to the general public appear to be shielding some of that travel by solely availing themselves of security resources not subject to open records requests," he said. "Maybe there's an innocuous explanation for this. But given the opacity we've seen from the court, especially when it comes to travel, maybe there's not."
Reporting in the past several months has shown how justices have benefited from rich friends. For example, last June, ProPublica exposed right-wing Justice Samuel Alito's undisclosed private jet flight to Alaska in 2008 with billionaire Paul Singer.
ProPublica also revealed in August that over the past few decades, Thomas has enjoyed at least "38 destination vacations, including a previously unreported voyage on a yacht around the Bahamas; 26 private jet flights, plus an additional eight by helicopter; a dozen VIP passes to professional and college sporting events, typically perched in the skybox; two stays at luxury resorts in Florida and Jamaica; and one standing invitation to an uber-exclusive golf club overlooking the Atlantic coast."
Recent exposés about the potential influence of wealthy individuals invested in the justices' decisions as well as low public trust in the high court—which has six right-wingers and three liberals—led to the creation of a voluntary Code of Conduct that critics called a "toothless PR stunt" and discussions of legislative reforms unlikely to advance in the divided Congress.
FTC advocates for "fixes" including "greater media and public access, Supreme Court term limits, new and robust ethics rules, stronger recusal rules, comprehensive online disclosures, and public appearance notifications."
As Roth said Thursday: "There remain a ton of justices' activities that the public does not know about or only learns about years after the fact. What are they trying to hide?"
"Some of them, like vacations or visiting family—have fun," he continued. "But when a justice is holding, per the marshals, an 'official event' or has seven consecutive protected nights of private 'dinner events,' it's understandable that the public would want more information."
"The pretense that we have a Supreme Court made up of nine above-reproach people doing their best free of corruption is utterly unsustainable."
Responding to the FOIA revelations in a Thursday statement, Revolving Door Project executive director Jeff Hauser and senior researcher Vishal Shankar also stressed the need for reforms at the nation's highest court.
"These bombshell findings from Fix the Court underscore an increasingly undeniable fact: The Supreme Court's right-wing justices have compromised the integrity of a critical public institution by accepting expensive handouts to enjoy secretive, luxurious lifestyles," said Shankar. "These revelations come as the court is hearing radical arguments attacking a functioning administrative state in a series of cases backed by the justices' billionaire benefactors, including Charles Koch."
"We cannot sit and wait for Justice Thomas and others to yet again gut the regulatory state in order to enrich their powerful friends," he added. "Any justice who has accepted luxury gifts or travel from these oligarchs must recuse from every case in which a party or amicus brief filer is connected to one or more of these oligarchs."
Hauser asserted that "the pretense that we have a Supreme Court made up of nine above-reproach people doing their best free of corruption is utterly unsustainable," and called for action by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).
"If right-wing members of Congress will block serious unpacking of the courts or even ethics reform, then the least we can expect of Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Durbin is that his committee belatedly issued last fall to Harlan Crow and Leonard Leo," Hauser said, referring to men with ties to Thomas.
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'Cesspool of Corruption': Dems Reintroduce Bill to Impose Supreme Court Term Limits
"Our Founding Fathers intended for lifetime appointments to ensure impartiality," said Rep. Ro Khanna. "The decision today demonstrates how justices have become partisan and out of step with the American public."
Jun 30, 2023
Condemning the right-wing majority on the U.S. Supreme Court as corrupt and "heavily politicized," U.S. Reps. Ro Khanna and Don Beyer on Friday reintroduced legislation to impose term limits for the nine justices in order to "restore judicial independence."
Hours after the court ruled that businesses can refuse services to LGBTQ+ people and struck down President Joe Biden's student loan debt relief program, Khanna (D-Calif.) said that the framers of the Constitution established lifetime appointments for justices on the nation's highest court in order "to ensure impartiality," but recent rulings by the six right-wing members of the panel's supermajority have not held up that standard.
"The Supreme Court's decision to block student debt relief will put many hardworking Americans at risk of default and will be a disaster for our economy," said Rep. Ro Khanna. "Our Founding Fathers intended for lifetime appointments to ensure impartiality. The decision today demonstrates how justices have become partisan and out of step with the American public. I'm proud to reintroduce the Supreme Court Term Limits and Regular Appointments Act to implement term limits to rebalance the court and stop extreme partisanship."
The legislation would create an 18-year term limit for justices appointed after the law was enacted. Justices would be permitted to serve on lower courts after their term was up.
Beyer (D-Va.) said the time has come to impose term limits following numerous partisan decisions by the Supreme Court, including its overturning of Roe v. Wade last year, and revelations about undisclosed financial ties that right-wing Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch have had to Republican megadonors and operatives who have had business before the court.
"For many Americans, the Supreme Court is a distant, secretive, unelected body that can make drastic changes in their lives without any accountability," said Beyer. "Recent partisan decisions by the Supreme Court that destroyed historic protections for reproductive rights, voting rights, and more have undermined public trust in the Court—even as inappropriate financial relationships between justices and conservative donors raised new questions about its integrity."
Currently, said Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), "six extremist, unelected activists" are doing "the bidding of billionaire Republican donors from the bench."
"This illegitimate Supreme Court has become a cesspool of corruption and is in urgent need of reform," she said. "It's time to end lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court."
A poll by Marist College in April found that 68% of Americans back term limits for Supreme Court justices while just 37% of respondents said they had confidence in the high court.
The judicial watchdog group Fix the Court endorsed Khanna and Beyer's proposal, noting that from the nation's founding until 1970, Supreme Court justices served 15 years on average.
"That number has nearly doubled in the last few decades, as the power the court has abrogated to itself has also increased exponentially," said the group.
The current system has allowed Supreme Court justices to "possess unchecked power for life," said Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court. "Luckily, there's a popular, apolitical way to fix this: by requiring future justices to take 'senior status' after 18 years, at which point they'd fill in at SCOTUS when needed, rotate down to a lower court, or retire."
"This idea forms the basis of Rep. Khanna's bill," he said, "and I'm pleased to support his work to establish fundamental guardrails for the most powerful, least accountable part of our government."
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