Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas Took $500,000 Trip With GOP Megadonor

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been accepting luxury travel invitations from Republican mega-donor and Dallas real estate developer Harlan Crow for more than 20 years, according to a new report from ProPublica.

The report accuses Thomas of traveling with Crow on his yacht and private jet “virtually every year” for two decades. ProPublica also claimed that the “public servant who has a salary of $285,000” also attended Bohemian Grove, the elite and exclusive all-male club in Northern California’s Redwood Forest, with Crow, as well as visited Crow’s “sprawling” ranch in Texas and private resort in the Adirondack Mountains.

In 2019, Thomas and his wife reportedly flew on Crow’s private jet to Indonesia for a nine-day vacation of “island-hopping” on a superyacht, also owned by the Dallas real-estate billionaire. If paid for out of pocket, the trip could have cost as much as $500,000.

In a statement that Crow gave to ProPublica, he claimed that “the hospitality we have extended to the Thomas’s over the years is no different from the hospitality we have extended to our many other dear friends.”

Crow also denied the allegations that as a Republican donor, he was attempting to buy influence on the Supreme Court’s decision-making, claiming that “we have never sought to influence Justice Thomas on any legal or political issue.”

Thomas responded to allegations that he failed to disclose the luxury trips in a statement on Friday, saying that he has “always sought to comply with the disclosure guidelines.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) said in response to the expose that “the highest court in the land shouldn’t have the lowest ethical standards… Today’s Pro Publica report reveals that Justice Thomas has for years accepted luxury travel on private yachts and jets and a litany of other gifts that he failed to disclose. 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.”

ProPublica is a nonprofit online news website that seeks to expose abuses of power and “betrayals of the public trust,” which has won six Pulitzer Prizes.