GOP Megadonor Funds Clarence Thomas’s Worldwide trips
Most people think of family trips as a week at the shore, maybe a trip to Disney or even a cross country RV jaunt.
But not Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He’s seen the world and it hasn’t cost him a dime.
Thomas acknowledged that over the last 20 years, he has enjoyed a series of free “family trips,” provided by Harlon Crow, a family friend, who happens to be a billionaire, real estate magnate and major Republican donor.
Trips, worth millions, have included free rides on Crow’s Bombardier Global 5000, a private jet that costs between $26 million and $50.4 million. They also included vacations like one free, nine day, luxury adventure of island-hopping in a volcanic Indonesian archipelago on Crow’s 161-foot long superyacht, the Michaela Rose. Thomas also boarded the Michaela Rose for a river day trip around Savannah, Ga., and an extended cruise in New Zealand.
Thomas, who is an African American, also was Crow’s guest at the Bohemia Club, a secretive California haven steeped in weird traditions and open only to the around 2,700 of the richest, mostly white, mostly Christian, all-male and overwhelmingly Republicans from presidents, bankers and rock stars to various captains of industry.
ProPublica reported that Thomas, who is paid $285,000 a year as a judge, noted none of the “family trips” or other gifts on the judge’s financial disclosure forms.One exception was that Thomas did report that Crow gave him a $19,000 bible once owned by abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
The largess from Crow flies in the face of Thomas’s own comments that he prefers visiting “the regular parts of the United. States” like WalMart parking lots.
“I prefer the RV parks. I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that. There’s something normal to me about it,” Thomas said. “I come from regular stock, and I prefer that — I prefer being around that,” Thomas said in “CREATED EQUAL,” a documentary about his life.
Thomas said that he had been advised that he was not required to report the gifts.
“Early in my tenure at the Court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable,” Thomas said.
Optics show a slam dunk conflict of interest because the billionaire sugar daddy is a staunch conservative and so is Thomas who serves on a court that rules on the most white hot social issues of the day and so is Thomas’s wife, Ginny, who has been a strong supporter of trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election because of now, disproved, voter fraud.
But other than optics, there is no likelihood that Thomas will be criticized, much less, impeached by the majority Republican Congress who would risk having Thomas replaced by a progressive Democrat. Ethics cow tows to politics and money and that’s about as rare as a story about a dog biting a man.
The controversy involves millions of dollars worth of gifts that Thomas has received over the last two decades from Crow, as outlined in a story by ProPublica.
Crow, 74, of Dallas, Texas, is a graduate of the University of Texas, Austin. He is the chairman (and former CEO) of Crow Holdings, one of the largest real estate developers in the nation, which was founded by his father, Trammell Crow.
In 2009, Crow provided $500,000 to Liberty Central, a non-profit, conservative political advocacy group which was established in 2009 by the judge’s wife, Virginia Thomas. The group ceased operations in 2012. The organization was promoted at the 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), a platform of the left, as an online community for those seeking to “preserve freedom and reaffirm the core founding principles.”
Crow has given more than $10 million in publicly disclosed political contributions that do not include so-called “dark money” contributions to groups that are not required to identify donors.
Crow has donated almost $5 million to Republican campaigns and conservative groups. He was one of the founders of the 501(c)4 organization “Club for Growth” and has served on the board of the right wing think tank, American Enterprise Institute, since 1996. Published reports said the Club for Growth was a major supporter of Republicans who voted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, having spent around $20 million on their campaigns in 2018 and 2020.
In 2011, Crow gave $500,000 to a Tea Party group formed by Mrs. Thomas, which also paid her a $120,000 salary.
Crow met Judge Thomas after he became a justice in 1991. The pair have become genuine friends, according to people who know both men. Crow said in a statement that he and his wife have never discussed a pending or lower court case with Thomas.
Thomas has been vacationing at Crow’s exclusive, private lakeside resort, Camp Topridge, every summer for more than two decades. The resort, which draws billionaire visitors from around the world, is in a remote corner of the Adirondacks in upstate New York. Closed off from the public by ornate wooden gates, the 105-acre property was once the summer retreat of Marjorie Merriweather Post, founder of General Foods and the daughter of C. W. Post, who also built trump’s estate, Mar-a-Lago in West Palm Beach, Fla.
Guests stay for free, enjoying Topridge’s more than 25 fireplaces, three boathouses, clay tennis court and batting cage, a lifesize replica of the Harry Potter character Hagrid’s hut, bronze statues of gnomes and a 1950s-style soda fountain where Crow’s staff fixes milkshakes.
In a statement, Crow said he is “unaware of any of our friends ever lobbying or seeking to influence Justice Thomas on any case, and I would never invite anyone who I believe had any intention of doing that. These are gatherings of friends.”
Judge Thomas also was a guest of Crow’s at Bohemian Grove, the annual summer retreat of the Bohemian Club, a networking venue for the rich and powerful.
Each July, the grove hosts a a two-week, three-weekend encampment of some of the most powerful men in the world. Visitors to the club’s annual summer retreat have included Henry Kissinger, Walter Cronkite, Richard Nixon, Charles Schwab, Ambrose Bierce, Bret Harte, Mark Twain, and Jack London and others Attesting to its popularity among the rich and famous, the waiting list for membership is said to be 3,000 names long.
Visitors and members of the Bohemian Club have included an eclectic range of artists, politicians and industrialists, from Bob Weir of The Grateful Dead, to President Ronald Reagan.
One member, President Richard M. Nixon, explained the club’s exclusive nature when he said that “Anyone can aspire to be President of the United States, but few have any hope of becoming president of the Bohemian Club.”
The club has gradually admitted some Jews, Blacks, Asians and Latinos along with a few Democrats. Two African American authors, Ernest J. Gaines and Herbert Gold, declined to join after they were recruited to an evening of entertainment that was performed by club members who included four white men in black face, singing Mills Brothers tunes. There are currently about five African American members. The first Jew was admitted as a regular member in 1972.
The Bohemian Club, an invitation-only social club, was founded in San Francisco in 1872 by a group of male artists, writers, actors, lawyers, and journalists. Since its founding, the club has expanded to include politicians and affluent businessmen.
The club motto is “Weaving Spiders Come Not Here,” implying that visitors and members should leave their outside concerns and business deals outside. Networking is most certainly a part of the stay, with members and visitors hobnobbing with the world’s elite.
Visitors to the 160-acre encampment stay in sleeping quarters with unlikely names like Hill Billies, Mandalay, Cave Man, Stowaway, Lost Angels and Silverado Squatters.
There are various amphitheaters, with seating for 2,000; a dining circle seating around 1,500; and a dining, drinking and entertainment building which was the site of the Manhattan Project planning meeting held in 1942. An artificial lake is the scene for concerts and ceremonies and informal talks by noted visitors, like entertainers, professors, astronauts, business leaders, cabinet officers, Central Intelligence Agency directors, future presidents and former presidents.
The club’s patron saint is John of Nepomuk, who, according to legend, died in 1393 at the hands of a Bohemian monarch rather than disclose the confessional secrets of the queen. A large wood carving of St. John in cleric robes with his index finger over his lips stands at the shore of the lake in the grove, symbolizing the secrecy kept by attendees throughout its long history. The Bohemian Grove’s mascot is a 30-foot tall owl, symbolizing wisdom.
Visitors can attend the “Cremation of Care, a theatrical production in which some of the club’s members participate as actors. In 1913, the Cremation of Care was moved to the first night to become “an exorcising of the Demon to ensure the success of the ensuing two weeks.” The ceremony involves a small boat containing an effigy of Care called “Dull Care.” Dark, hooded figures receive from the ferryman the effigy which is placed on an altar, and, at the end of the ceremony, set on fire. The “cremation” symbolizes that members are banishing the “dull cares” of conscience.
No woman has ever been given full membership in the Bohemian Club, but there have been four female honorary members. The women can enter the Bohemian “City Club” but not the upper floors nor the main summer encampment. Women who are invited to events at the club must enter via a side door and stay in the downstairs banquet rooms.
At 2008 report noted attendees of the Bohemian Grove included such power brokers as John F. Akers, president & CEO of IBM; Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.; Samuel H. Armacost, former president & CEO of BankAmerica; James A. Baker III, White House chief-of-staff for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush; actor, James Belushi; Mike (Michael) Bloomberg, billionaire former mayor of New York City; singer Jimmy Buffet; President George H.W. Bush; Walter Cronkite, CBS Evening News anchorman; Clint Eastwood; Robert D. Haas, chairman emeritus of Levi Strauss & Co.; Charles B. Johnson, billionaire former CEO of Franklin Resources mutual fund company; and Charles G. Koch, billionaire co-founder, chairman & CEO of Koch Industries and his brother, David H. Koch, co-0wner and VP of Koch Industries.