Probe Into Justice Thomas’s Millions of Dollars in ‘Gifts’ Sought By Democratic Senators
Attorney General Merrick Garland has been asked to find out if justice is, in fact, blind or whether Lady Justice will turn away when the subject is the millions of dollars' worth of gifts given to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
This week, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., called on Garland to appoint a special counsel to investigate potential ethics and tax law violations by Thomas and his benefactors. The violations may include lying on federal reporting forms and evading income taxes, the senators wrote in a letter to Garland.
Adding to the attacks on Thomas, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., introduced articles of impeachment which are not expected to gain support in the Republican-controlled House.
Even Thomas doesn’t deny the facts that over two decades Harlan Crow, Charles and David Koch, the Koch network, Wayne Huizenga, David Sokol, and Paul Novelly provided Thomas with 38 vacations, 26 private jet flights, eight flights by helicopter, a dozen VIP passes to sporting events, attendance as a guest at the exclusive Bohemian Club, travel on a private jet to and lodging at Koch network summits at resorts in California, tuition for his nephew in a private school, and a $267,000 loan to buy a luxury recreational vehicle. Crow also bought the home where Thomas’s mother lived and allowed her to live there rent-free. Thomas reported none of this.
The law also seems crystal clear that Thomas violated federal laws requiring him to disclose the gifts. Thomas was legally obliged to disclose the gifts as well as the donors and should be prosecuted even though it would take an impeachment and conviction to remove him from the High Court. Leaving a gift off the federal forms is akin to denying a gift was received.
Most recently, Garland named a special prosecutor to investigate the relatively petty crimes allegedly committed by President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, so it behooves Garland to name a special prosecutor to look into the ever more serious allegations against Thomas. Doubtless, if a prosecutor is named and if Thomas is charged and if he is found guilty, trump will surely pardon him if he is re-elected president.
Thomas has offered a convoluted explanation of how he did not report gifts because of bad advice from as of yet unidentified colleagues or advisers. There is room for differences under the ethics rules that bind the Supreme Court, but federal laws clearly required him to disclose gifts as income. It is up to Garland to bring Thomas up on charges.
Justices and all judges have “judicial immunity” for lawsuits related to cases or trials they oversee. But for crimes or actions committed outside their role, they face the same punishments and judicial actions as any other citizen. The Ethics in Government Act requires all covered officials, explicitly including Supreme Court justices, to disclose gifts along with the identity of the source, a brief description, and the value of all gifts aggregating more than $250, received from any source other than a relative of the reporting individual.
Excluded from reporting is any “food, lodging or entertainment received as personal hospitality of an individual.” Personal hospitality is defined as “hospitality extended for a nonbusiness purpose by an individual, not a corporation or organization, at the personal residence of the individual or the individual’s family, or on property or facilities owned by that individual or the individual’s family.”
Claiming that the lavish gifts that Thomas received qualified as “personal hospitality” reaches the absurdity of trump’s lies.
A Supreme Court Justice has never been charged with a crime although one was impeached and later acquitted by the Senate and another resigned in the wake of reported illegalities.
Numerous federal officials have been charged with criminal offenses for failing to disclose gifts and making false statements.
In 2008, David Safavian, the chief of staff of the General Services Administration, was indicted and sent to prison in connection with a vacation provided to him by Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist who plead guilty to corruption charges in 2006.
In 2021, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood avoided prosecution for failing to disclose a $50,000 loan. In lieu of prosecution, LaHood agreed to pay a fine and repay the loan. He claimed he did not disclose the loan because he did not want to be associated with the lender.
In 2005, FBI agent Erik Blowers was indicted for failing to include two free trips to Las Vegas on his federal disclosure form. In 2016, another agent, Leonardo Silva, was charged with a similar crime for failure to disclose numerous trips paid for by others, on private planes.
In 2016, a former Drug Enforcement Agency official was charged with making false statements for failing to disclose gifts of private air travel received from 2010 through 2014.27 The same year, a Department of Veterans Affairs official was charged with failing to disclose around $21,000 in gifts including airline tickets and resort services. In 2010, a Department of Housing and Urban Development official was charged for failure to disclose luxury sports tickets from someone with business before his agency.
“The value, scope, and duration of the undisclosed gifts accepted by Justice Thomas dwarf the undisclosed gifts for which the Department of Justice prosecuted these officials, who entered pleas of guilty,” according to the letter to Garland.
Whitehouse and Wyden wrote that the “full scope of Justice Thomas’s non-disclosures is still unknown, but the evidence assembled thus far suggests that, since his appointment to the Supreme Court, Justice Thomas has secretly accepted gifts and income potentially worth millions of dollars.”
The senators wrote that when presented with opportunities to resolve questions about his conduct, “Thomas has maintained a suspicious silence.”
“No government official should be above the law. Supreme Court justices are properly expected to obey laws designed to prevent conflicts of interest and the appearance of impropriety and to comply with the federal tax code,” the senators wrote.
The letter to Garland notes that Thomas may have violated the Ethics in Government Act, which requires government officials, including Supreme Court justices, to file annual reports disclosing gifts and income accepted from outside sources.
Among the gifts being investigated, the Senate Finance Committee has determined that Anthony Welters loaned Thomas and his wife $267,230 to buy a 1991 Prevost Marathon motor coach. The committee found that no principal on the loan was paid and the debt was discharged.
Welters is the executive chairman of the BlackIvy Group, a holding company that builds commercial enterprises in sub-Saharan Africa and is based in Ghana, Kenya and Tanzania. Welter also is executive vice-president of UnitedHealth Group (UHG), having founded its predecessor, AmeriChoice, in 1989. UnitedHealth Group Incorporated is a multinational health insurance and services company that is the world’s 11th largest company by revenue and the largest health care company by revenue.
The Senate Judiciary Committee also found that billionaire Harlan Crow has donated to Thomas numerous gifts over the past 20 years, “almost none of which were disclosed by Justice Thomas as the Ethics in Government Act requires.”
Gifts from Crow include free private jet travel, yacht travel, and lodging, as well as gifts of tuition for Thomas’s grandnephew and real estate transactions, home renovations, and free rent for Thomas’s mother, “all of which Justice Thomas failed to disclose.”
Gifts from Crow were the most lavish and were apparently undisclosed including a 2003 Yacht trip to Russia and the Baltics; 2003 helicopter ride to Yusupov Palace, St. Petersburg, Russia; 2006 and 2007 tuition for Thomas’s grandnephew at Randolph-Macon Academy; and a 2010 tuition for his grandnephew at Hidden Lake Academy 2008 and 2010.
Also, 2007 yacht cruise around Greek islands; various 2008, 2009 roundtrip flights on a private plane from Washington, D.C., to Savannah, Ga.; 2008 yacht trip between Savannah, Ga. and Charleston, S.C.; 2016 roundtrip private plane flight from Washington, D.C., to New Haven, Conn.; 2017 roundtrip flights from Washington, D.C., to Keese Mill, N.Y.; 2017 and 2018 meals and lodging at Camp Topridge, an exclusive camp in the Adirondacks owned by Crow and catering to the uber rich.
Also, a flight on private plane from St. Louis, Mo., to Kalispell, Mont., and return flight to Dallas, Texas; several 2018 roundtrip flights from Washington, D.C., to Dallas; 2019 roundtrip flight on private plane from Washington, D.C., to Savannah, Ga.; 2019 roundtrip flight on private plane to Indonesia, and related yacht travel; 2019 roundtrip flight on private plane to Santa Rosa, Calif.; 2021 roundtrip flight on private plane from Washington, D.C., to N.Y.; 2021 roundtrip flight on private plane from Washington, D.C., to San Jose, Calif.
Crow is a billionaire real estate developer and the former chairman and CEO of the Trammell Crow Company, which was founded by his father, Trammell Crow. Crow is the cofounder of Club for Growth, a right wing organization favoring lower taxes and opposing efforts to stem global warming. The club has been a major financial supporter of trump and is a major donor to the Republican Party and other conservative causes.
The senators’ letter also referred to findings that Thomas has accepted similar, undisclosed gifts from other billionaire donors, including private jet travel from Paul Anthony Novelly; private jet travel and country club membership from the late Wayne Huizenga; and private jet travel, luxury sports tickets, and lodging at a ranch from David Sokol.
Novelly owns Apex Oil, a petroleum products distribution, storage and transportation firm based in St. Louis, Mo. He also owns World Point Terminals, which owns 19 oil storage terminals in 15 states, and Bermuda-based oil trading firm AIC. Other holdings include the Shanty Creek ski and golf resort in Michigan; real estate in St. Louis and St. Albans, Missouri; and 40 percent of publicly traded specialty chemicals producer FutureFuel.
Huizenga, who died in 2018, founded AutoNation and Waste Management Inc., and was the owner or co-owner of Blockbuster Video, the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League (NFL), the Florida Panthers of the National Hockey League (NHL), and the Florida Marlins (now Miami Marlins) of Major League Baseball (MLB).
Sokol is chairman of the investment company, Teton Capital LLC, and served as chairman, president, and CEO of NetJets, a company that sells ownership shares in private business jets. Sokol also was chairman of MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company, a holding company and subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway.
In 2010, Sokol introduced Thomas when the Horatio Alger Association presented Thomas the 1992 Horatio Alger Award. He has had a close personal relationship with Thomas for more than a decade and regularly vacations with Thomas and his wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas. Mrs. Thomas is a leading supporter of trump’s debunked claims that the 2020 election ws rigged for the Democrats.
Gifts from Huizenga allegedly included 2004 Flights from Washington, D.C., to Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. Welters forgo the balance of the 2008 loan for the RV.
Welters also paid for a 2010 roundtrip flight from Washington, D.C. to Port of Spain, Trinidad; 2015 meals and lodging at ranch outside Jackson Hole, Wyo.
Sokol gave a 2016 flight on private plane from Jackson Hole to Washington, D.C. Sokol’s gifts included 2019 meals and lodging at ranch outside Jackson Hole; and 2019 tickets to Nebraska football game and Nebraska volleyball game.
Novelly provided a 2018 flight on private from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., to Washington, D.C.; a 2019 plane flight from Washington, D.C., to Wyoming and back to Washington, D.C.
Thomas has claimed that some omissions were “inadvertent,” and he has amended some past reports. Authorities have shown that Thomas “has not disclosed all of the gifts that have been uncovered, and there may well be more.”
“His long history of omissions indicates a pattern of willfulness meriting investigation under the Ethics in Government Act,” the senators wrote in their letter to Garland.
The letter also points to published reports that conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo secretly directed at least $25,000 to the firm operated by Thomas’s wife “as evidence that additional investigation is needed to uncover the full scope of potential unlawful conduct related to any coordinated gifts program for certain justices.”
Leo arranged for Mrs. Thomas to be paid tens of thousands of dollars for consulting work just over a decade ago, specifying that her name be left off billing paperwork, according to The Washington Post. Leo was identified as a key figure in a network of nonprofits that has worked to support the nominations of conservative judges and has raised millions for Republicans.
Leo is the former CEO of the Federalist Society, which has regularly paid him more than $400,000 in annual compensation and in 2016, the Catholic Association paid him $120,000 for management consulting.
In 2011, Thomas admitted to omitting hundreds of thousands of dollars of his spouse’s income from his disclosures, because of a “misunderstanding of the filing instructions.” Earlier in his tenure on the court, however, Thomas properly recorded similar sources of income.
Special counsels are appointed to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest. In past years, on May 17, 2017, former FBI Director Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel to take over the previous FBI investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
In December 2020, then-Attorney General William Barr said that John Durham had been granted special counsel status. Durham was named to investigate the origins of an FBI investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections.
On November 18, 2022, Garland named Jack Smith special counsel to investigate trump’s ‘s actions regarding the January 6 attack on the Capitol by trump supporters and trump’s mishandling of classified documents.
On January 12, 2023, Garland appointed Robert Hur special counsel to investigate Biden’s storage of classified materials.
On August 11, 2023 Garland appointed David C. Weiss special counsel to investigate Biden’s son.