GOP megadonor paid for Clarence Thomas’s lavish trips including Bohemian Grove: Report
Kaelan Deese
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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas accepted invites to paid vacations from a wealthy Republican real estate developer and megadonor, going anywhere from Bohemian Grove to Indonesia, according to a report from the investigative outlet ProPublica.
For more than two decades, Thomas has “accepted luxury trips virtually every year” from Harlan Crow, a Dallas-based real estate developer and GOP donor, without disclosing them, according to the report. The places Thomas reportedly visited include destinations such as a 2019 trip to Indonesia, a cruise to New Zealand nearly a decade ago, and even a trip to the exclusive all-male retreat known as Bohemian Grove in California.
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Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) issued a statement decrying Thomas’s actions relayed in the report, saying, “This behavior is simply inconsistent with the ethical standards the American people expect of any public servant, let alone a Justice on the Supreme Court.”
Durbin added, “Today’s report demonstrates, yet again, that Supreme Court Justices must be held to an enforceable code of conduct, just like every other federal judge. The ProPublica report is a call to action, and the Senate Judiciary Committee will act.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) and former House Republican-turned-commentator Adam Kinzinger chastised Thomas over the allegations.
“Regardless of your politics, this cannot be acceptable,” Kinzinger tweeted. Lieu called in House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) to pass a Democratic-backed bill to enhance ethics rules for Supreme Court justices.
The report was also accused of unfairly targeting Thomas, such as a critical tweet from Philip Kerpen, a free market policy analyst and political organizer, decrying ProPublica as a “left-wing ‘charity'” that is mad “Clarence Thomas has a rich friend.”
The revelation of the travel gifts comes as the federal judiciary’s administrative arm updated its rules last month, requiring the justices and lower court judges to disclose all free gifts, such as stays at commercial properties and other hospitable offerings.
The ProPublica report also noted the 2019 trip alone would have cost more than $500,000 and that Thomas accepted vacations with Crow nearly every year for more than 20 years, though it noted it “identified five such trips in addition to the Indonesia vacation,” citing flight records from the Federal Aviation Administration and FlightAware.
Crow responded to the report admitting that he has extended “hospitality” to the justice over the years but that Thomas “never asked for any of this hospitality” and that it was never to influence matters before the high court.
“My wife Kathy and I … have never asked about a pending or lower court case, and Justice Thomas has never discussed one, and we have never sought to influence Justice Thomas on any legal or political issue,” Crow said in a statement sent to the Washington Examiner.
Crow said his family has made contributions to “projects celebrating the life and legacy of Justice Thomas” on several occasions. “We will continue to support projects that advance this goal.”
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Crow also hosted a speaking event last May that included Thomas’s first comments at the time since the unprecedented leak of the draft opinion signaling the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
“I want to keep that friendship,” Thomas, one of six Republican-appointed members of the high court, said of his relationship to Crow after legal scholar John Yoo thanked the donor for hosting the event. The talk was also sponsored by conservative think tanks including the American Enterprise Institute, the Hoover Institution, and the Manhattan Institute.
As an associate justice, Thomas makes an annual salary of $285,400, according to the National Taxpayers Union Foundation. While the ProPublica report cited several ethics experts and former judges who condemned Thomas’s trips, there are few restrictions on what gifts justices can accept in comparison to prohibitions for members of Congress.
Under the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, federal judges, including Supreme Court justices, are required, like other government officials, to complete financial disclosure reports annually. Congress passed a law last year further requiring judges to file financial disclosure reports periodically and created a database that went live in November for the public to access such records.
The recent rule change for heightened transparency about trips and hospitality still does not require members of the judiciary to disclose gifts that include meals, lodging, or entertainment provided by someone for nonbusiness purposes.
But the revised rules make clear that judges are required to reveal stays at places such as hotels and resorts and if they receive gifts paid for by an entity or third party that is not the person who is directly providing the gift.
Bohemian Grove has long been a source of intrigue for outsiders and conspiracy theorists, including Alex Jones of InfoWars. The event has been attended by numerous presidents and business moguls in years past, including Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, and Dwight Eisenhower, along with George Harrar, former president of the Rockefeller Foundation, and Rudolph Peterson, former Bank of America president, according to a publication on the CIA’s webpage.
“In 2000, Jones and his cameraman entered the camp with a hidden camera and were able to film a Bohemian Grove ceremony, Cremation of the Care,” the Washington Post reported in 2011. “During the ceremony, members wear costumes and cremate a coffin effigy called ‘Care’ before a 40-foot-owl, in deference to the surrounding Redwood trees.”
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The ProPublica report did not detail when the justice allegedly visited the all-male destination.
The Washington Examiner contacted the Supreme Court and the co-author of the justice’s biography published in 2022.