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harlan crow
Democratic Senator Rips Judicial Body's Decision Not to Refer Clarence Thomas to DOJ
"By all appearances, the judicial branch is shirking its statutory duty to hold a Supreme Court justice accountable for ethics violations," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse.
Jan 03, 2025
Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse slammed the policy-setting body of the U.S. judiciary for declining his request to refer Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to the Department of Justice over the right-wing judge's repeated failure to disclose luxury trips taken on the dime of billionaire benefactors.
Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the decision by the Judicial Conference "contains a number of inconsistencies and strange claims, and ultimately doesn't address the only real question the Judicial Conference should've been focused on for the nearly two years it's spent on this matter: Is there reasonable cause to believe that Justice Thomas willfully broke the disclosure law?"
"By all appearances," Whitehouse added, "the judicial branch is shirking its statutory duty to hold a Supreme Court justice accountable for ethics violations."
In a letter to Whitehouse on Thursday, Judicial Conference Secretary Robert Conrad wrote that Thomas "has filed amended financial disclosure statements" addressing his past failure to divulge trips and other gifts funded by billionaires, including GOP megadonor Harlan Crow. Thomas has insisted he did not know he was required to disclose such gifts, a claim that Whitehouse and other critics have met with deep skepticism.
Conrad also expressed doubt that the Judicial Conference has the power to refer Supreme Court justices to the Justice Department, even as he acknowledged the body's referral authority under 5 U.S.C. § 13106(b).
That statute says the Judicial Conference "shall refer to the attorney general the name of any individual which such official or committee has reasonable cause to believe has willfully failed to file a report or has willfully falsified or willfully failed to file information required to be reported."
"There is at least reasonable cause to believe that Justice Thomas intentionally disregarded the disclosure requirement."
In April 2023, Whitehouse and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) urged the Judicial Conference to "step in and refer Justice Thomas to the attorney general for investigation" after ProPublicarevealed that in addition to funding luxury trips, Crow purchased property from the judge.
Thomas did not disclose the transaction, a failure that Whitehouse and Johnson characterized as "part of an apparent pattern of noncompliance with disclosure requirements."
"There is at least reasonable cause to believe that Justice Thomas intentionally disregarded the disclosure requirement to report the sale of his interest in the Savannah properties in an attempt to hide the extent of his financial relationship with Crow," the Democratic lawmakers wrote in their 2023 letter to the Judicial Conference.
The body's decision Thursday came days after the Senate Judiciary Committee uncovered two additional private jet and yacht trips Thomas took in 2021 at Crow's expense.
"It's clear that the justices are losing the trust of the American people at the hands of a gaggle of fawning billionaires," Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement last month after his panel released a report on the Supreme Court's "ethical crisis."
The report accuses the Judicial Conference of failing "to adequately respond to the Supreme Court's ethical challenges," noting that the body's September 2024 changes to disclosure requirements "are oddly specific in expanding the personal hospitality exemption and seem more likely to absolve past misconduct and facilitate the acceptance of future largesse than strengthen judicial ethics."
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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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The Supreme Court’s Billionaire Buddies Just Made Your Life Worse
The assault by the six right-wing justices on the Chevron doctrine is an assault on everyday people, carried out on behalf of corporations and the Court’s wealthy benefactors.
Jul 13, 2024
Last month, the Supreme Court broke with four decades of precedent and overturned Chevron deference, a cornerstone of administrative law that has been cited by federal courts over 18,000 times. The 6-3 ruling, handed down on party lines in the cases Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless Inc. v. Department of Commerce, eliminated a judicial doctrine that had long instructed federal courts to defer to federal agencies’ interpretations of ambiguous or unclear laws passed by Congress, rather than have judges act as regulatory policy-makers.
Chevron deference was established in the 1984 Supreme Court case Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council for two main reasons. First, because federal agencies are staffed with career civil servants and subject matter experts like scientists, researchers, and data analysts who understand the nitty-gritty details of regulatory policy-making far better than any given judge. Second was the importance of democratic accountability and the separation of powers, with Justice John Paul Stevens writing in the Chevron decision that “federal judges—who have no constituency—have a duty to respect legitimate policy choices made by those who do.”
In her blistering dissent for Loper Bright, Justice Elena Kagan excoriated the Court’s right-wing majority for “giv[ing] itself exclusive power over every open issue—no matter how expertise-driven or policy-laden—involving the meaning of regulatory law.” The Court itself had inadvertently showcased the danger of having judges act as regulatory experts a day earlier, when Justice Neil Gorsuch repeatedly confused the air pollutant nitrogen oxide with the anesthetic nitrous oxide (more commonly known as “laughing gas”).
But Chevron’s repeal is no laughing matter. Allowing unelected, lifetime-appointed federal judges to invalidate countless regulatory protections based purely on their own political preferences will open the floodgates to a corporate legal assault on crucial regulatory protections—from clean air and water, to food and drug safety, to labor and civil rights.
Curiously, Chevron was once celebrated by conservatives (including the late Antonin Scalia), as it allowed the Reagan administration to continue its industry-friendly regulatory approach unimpeded by the more liberal federal courts at the time (the DC Circuit ruling overturned by SCOTUS in Chevron was written by then-circuit judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg). But over the past decade, as Democrats regained control of the executive branch and used Chevron deference to check corporate power, conservatives have changed their tune. Aided by the GOP’s packing of the courts with Federalist Society alumni, the conservative legal movement and Big Business now see the unelected judiciary as the best long-term venue for dismantling the administrative state.
Allowing unelected, lifetime-appointed federal judges to invalidate countless regulatory protections based purely on their own political preferences will open the floodgates to a corporate legal assault on crucial regulatory protections—from clean air and water, to food and drug safety, to labor and civil rights.
Their most powerful ally in this effort has been Justice Clarence Thomas, a former supporter of Chevron doctrine whose about-face has been equally opportunistic. According to The Lever, Thomas—who wrote a landmark opinion upholding Chevron in 2005—began working to overturn the doctrine after he and his wife received lavish undisclosed gifts and financial support from wealthy conservative benefactors, including real estate mogul Harlan Crow and Federalist Society leader Leonard Leo. Records unearthed by ProPublica have also revealed that Thomas was invited to fundraising events held by fossil fuel billionaire Charles Koch, whose donor network has long sought the overturning of Chevron.
These wealthy benefactors played a hidden role in the successful overturning of Chevron this term by using the disputes about federal fishing fees in the Loper Bright and Relentless cases as stalking horses against the doctrine. Petitioners in both cases were represented pro bono by lawyers with close ties to the Koch network. In Loper Bright, herring fisherman Bill Bright was represented by three lawyers who also work for Americans for Prosperity, one of the Koch Network’s most prominent organizations. In Relentless, the petitioners were likewise represented free of charge by the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), a right-wing litigation group that has received over $5 million from Koch-affiliated organizations and $4 million from Leonard Leo’s dark money groups.
The Court’s power brokers have also used amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs to engage in judicial lobbying. In Loper Bright and Relentless, we found 19 examples of this practice. Right-wing think tanks Cato Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, and Texas Public Policy Foundation—who all filed anti-Chevron doctrine amicus briefs in Loper Bright—have received millions in donations from Koch organizations. The Board of Trustees for the Manhattan Institute, another Koch-funded Loper Bright amicus filer, is chaired by Justice Samuel Alito’s wealthy fishing buddy Paul Singer and counts Harlan Crow’s wife Kathy among its members. Leonard Leo has similarly bankrolled several amicus filers, including the Mike Pence-led Advancing American Freedom, the anti-abortion group Students for Life of America, and (conspicuously) the recently-launched fishing industry lobby group NEFSA.
Despite these flagrant conflicts of interest, neither Justice Thomas nor Justice Alito recused themselves from Loper Bright or Relentless. In fact, the only Justice to recuse from either Chevron case was Ketanji Brown Jackson, who had participated in oral arguments for Loper Bright while serving as a circuit judge.
The devastating impact of Chevron repeal has been compounded by other radical party-line power-grabs made by the Court this term.
The Loper Bright decision is already bearing fruit for its corporate supporters. Just hours after the decision, Eastern District of Texas Judge Sean D. Jordan cited it in his decision to partially block a Department of Labor rule that would have made over 4 million workers eligible for overtime pay. Loper Bright has also been cited in at least four other legal challenges against the DOL’s protections for tipped and gig workers, as well as a new lawsuit filed by three New Jersey hospitals against HHS rules governing Medicare reimbursement. Experts at the Center for American Progress have outlined the many other regulatory protections that could be at risk post-Chevron, including fair housing and anti-discrimination rules, relief for student borrowers, the EPA’s new vehicle and power plant emissions standards, and the CFPB’s crackdown on predatory junk fees.
The devastating impact of Chevron repeal has been compounded by other radical party-line power-grabs made by the Court this term. In SEC v. Jarkesy, the conservative majority made it much harder for the federal government to prosecute white collar criminals, while also threatening the structure of many administrative agencies. And in Corner Post v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Justices functionally eliminated the statute of limitations for challenging new federal regulations. In her dissent for the latter, Justice Jackson warned that “the tsunami of lawsuits against agencies that the Court's holdings in this case and Loper Bright have authorized has the potential to devastate the functioning of the Federal Government.”
Of course for the right-wing, devastation is the goal. The Court’s dismantling of the administrative state follows Donald Trump’s own attempt to do so in the waning days of his presidency through the short-lived Schedule F scheme, which would have empowered the president to fire thousands of career civil servants at will and replace them with political loyalists. Though repealed by the Biden administration, restoring Schedule F remains a central plank of both Trump’s 2024 campaign and the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.
Corporate actors and right-wing activists are attacking the administrative state because they know how important it is for protecting the public from unchecked corporate power.
If nothing else, the end of Chevron should end debate among court-watchers as to whether any of the Roberts Court’s six conservative members (including Loper Bright author John Roberts himself) are “moderate.” Loper Bright is one more example in a series of landmark rulings— including Citizens United v. FEC, Janus v. AFSCME, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, and the recent Trump v. United States—which reveal what John Roberts and his Court actually care about. They have no regard for long-held precedent or for the rule of law, only far-reaching power-grabs that benefit the Federalist Society and Big Business. Their flagrant disregard for judicial ethics and the separation of powers should compel Congress to rein in the Court’s unchecked power by codifying Chevron deference into law, enacting a binding and enforceable Supreme Court ethics code, impeaching Justices Thomas and Alito, and expanding the Supreme Court.
Corporate actors and right-wing activists are attacking the administrative state because they know how important it is for protecting the public from unchecked corporate power. So long as the Supreme Court retains its corrupt right-wing majority, the future looks bright for Big Business. For the rest of us, the Court’s relentless power-grabs will make everyday life much worse.
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