Month: April 2023

Yahoo! News 360

Clarence Thomas’s luxury travel: A threat to the court’s legitimacy?

Mike Bebernes, Senior Editor – April 13, 2023

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What’s happening

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s friendship with a billionaire real estate developer has come under intense scrutiny following a report last week by ProPublica that details luxury vacations Thomas took part in over the past two decades.

According to the report, Thomas and his wife, Ginni, have enjoyed lavish trips funded by Texas billionaire Harlan Crow “virtually every year,” including global travel on Crow’s superyacht and private jet as well as annual visits to his properties in the U.S. The justice did not report any of these trips in his annual financial disclosures.

Thomas, a staunch conservative who has played a critical role in the Supreme Court’s rightward tilt in his more than 30 years on the bench, released a statement asserting that the trips did not need to be disclosed because they fell under an exception that allows for “personal hospitality from close personal friends.” Legal experts disagree over whether Thomas’s failure to report his travels with Crow violated federal disclosure laws, with some arguing that until recently the rules were too ambiguous to clearly assert that he should have disclosed them.

The Supreme Court is generally left to police itself. Unlike officials on lower federal courts, the nine justices are not bound by a formal code of ethics. Because the country’s founders wanted members of the nation’s top court to be shielded from politics, the other branches of government have little power to influence the court — other than the drastic step of impeachment.

Thomas is no stranger to controversy. His confirmation hearings in 1991 became one of the most heated political fights of the era amid accusations he had sexually harassed a colleague named Anita Hill. He has been a key conservative vote in contentious rulings around equal rights, voting access and abortion. More recently, he faced fierce criticism for refusing to recuse himself from cases that related to his wife’s participation in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Why there’s debate

Democrats and liberal commentators have roundly condemned Thomas for failing to disclose the extent of his relationship with Crow as well as his willingness to accept such lavish hospitality in the first place. Progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the justice’s relationship with Crow, who has given millions to fund Republicans, represents an “almost cartoonish” level of corruption and called for Thomas to be impeached. Though there’s no direct evidence that Crow’s generosity influenced Thomas’s rulings, Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said his actions were “simply inconsistent with the ethical standards the American people expect of any public servant, let alone a justice on the Supreme Court.”

Most conservatives have rallied to defend Thomas, arguing that he followed ethics rules as they’re written and insisting that even Supreme Court justices are allowed to have close friends. They also sternly reject the implication that a billionaire could alter a justice’s decision making in key cases by taking him on vacation. Many have accused Democrats of using these trips as an excuse to try to discredit Thomas, who has provided a consistent conservative bulwark against their cause for three decades.

But others say Thomas’s actions, whether or not they constitute actual corruption, bolster the view that the Supreme Court has lost its legitimacy. The public’s faith in the court reached an all-time low last year in the months following its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Critics say Thomas’s actions, and the lack of any accountability for them, feed the perception that the conservative justices are merely an extension of the Republican political movement.

What’s next

Durbin said last week that the Senate Judiciary Committee will act in response to the ProPublica report. It’s unclear what steps he and any other members of Congress will take. The scandal has also revived calls for Congress to establish an official ethics code for the Supreme Court, but similar efforts in recent years have fizzled due to lack of bipartisan support.

Perspectives

This is exactly what real corruption looks like

“Corruption is much more than a cartoonish quid pro quo, where cash changes hands and the state is used for private gain. Corruption, more often than not, looks like an ordinary relationship, even a friendship. It is perks and benefits freely given to a powerful friend. It is expensive gifts and tokens of appreciation between those friends, except that one holds office and the other wants to influence its ideological course. It is being enmeshed in networks of patronage that look innocent from the inside but suspect to those who look with clearer eyes from the outside.” — Jamelle Bouie, New York Times

Justices can’t be expected to be lifelong hermits

“Supreme Court justices are allowed to have friends, even if a particular friend is rich and a particular justice is conservative. Clarence Thomas has written a lot of important Supreme Court opinions during his three decades on the bench. I recommend that we spend our time addressing those and leave his personal life to him.” — Scott Douglas Gerber, The Hill

Crow’s money gives him influence that regular people could never imagine

“Crow may not have bought Thomas’s vote, but he sure paid for hundreds of hours of face time. … If you’re a rich Republican friend of the Crows, you had an opportunity to plead your case to the justice. I didn’t. Women … didn’t. Parents of children who were murdered at school because of Thomas’s interpretation of the Second Amendment didn’t. Crow doesn’t invite those parents to his private resort when the justice is around.” — Elie Mystal, The Nation

Democrats want to dismantle the conservative court by any means available

“This non-bombshell has triggered breathless claims that the Court must be investigated, and that Justice Thomas must resign or be impeached. Those demands give away the real political game here.” — Editorial, Wall Street Journal

The country’s most powerful judges shouldn’t have lower ethical standards than regular workers

“While librarians and teachers and FDA inspectors and lawyers turn down water bottles and bagels, Thomas says yes to all this? Are those pesky ethics and rules just for the little people, too? It’s demoralizing, fuels cynicism, and corrodes trust in public institutions.” — Terri Gerstein, Slate

Partisanship makes it impossible to have a real conversation about the issues at play

“There is little doubt that interpretations of Thomas’s ethics fall quite neatly into red and blue camps. … If your guy does something, it’s unprecedented corruption. If my guy does it, it’s a trivial lapse. See: sex scandals of Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.” — Mona Charen, The Bulwark

Thomas’s actions represent a lapse in judgment, not a major scandal

“Thomas was wrong not to disclose apparently free, luxurious trips as a guest of Texas billionaire Harlan Crow. He should amend the record, apologize for the lack of disclosure, pledge to observe disclosure rules more scrupulously in the future — and then move on. Thomas’s nondisclosures are an ethical lapse. They are not, however, major sins.” — Quin Hillyer, Washington Examiner

The lack of any real guardrails for justices poses a threat to the court’s legitimacy

“Ultimately, what’s even more troubling than his behavior is the fact that the Supreme Court does not have its own code of conduct, even though there is one that applies to other federal judges. And if the high court doesn’t take the steps to adopt one on its own, Congress should act swiftly to pass legislation requiring justices to adhere to ethical standards.” — Julian Zelizer, CNN

The country’s legal system will collapse if the public doesn’t believe it’s legitimate

“The Supreme Court has no army or police department that can enforce its rulings outside its walls. … For the sake of the institution and its legitimacy, the justices need to display respect for the trust that should go with the lifetime appointments they have been given — or they will continue to see an erosion of public faith.” — Editorial, Washington Post

The myth of an independent judiciary is long dead

“The unspoken assumption is that, by definition, Supreme Court justices cannot be unethical, partisan cynics. It is an absurd, self-serving mythos propagated by legal elites who have earned the American people’s abhorrence. Thomas’s ethical quagmire exposes the Supreme Court’s self-mythology for the lie that it is.” — Max Moran, The American Prospect

The most worrying thing is that Republicans see nothing wrong

“One singularly unethical justice might be a containable problem. But Clarence Thomas is not seen by conservatives as an embarrassment they’re stuck with. To the contrary, they celebrate him as their moral beacon.” — Jonathan Chait, New York

Is there a topic you’d like to see covered in “The 360”? Send your suggestions to the360@yahoonews.com.

Photo illustration: Jack Forbes/Yahoo News; photos: Chris Goodney/Bloomberg via Getty Images , Alex Wong/Getty Images, Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

HuffPost

Billionaire Harlan Crow Bought Property From Clarence Thomas. The Justice Didn’t Disclose the Deal.

Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan and Alex Mierjeski, ProPublica

April 13, 2023

This story was originally published by ProPublica.

In 2014, one of Texas billionaire Harlan Crow’s companies purchased a string of properties on a quiet residential street in Savannah, Georgia. It wasn’t a marquee acquisition for the real estate magnate, just an old single-story home and two vacant lots down the road. What made it noteworthy were the people on the other side of the deal: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his relatives.

The transaction marks the first known instance of money flowing from the Republican megadonor to the Supreme Court justice. The Crow company bought the properties for $133,363 from three co-owners — Thomas, his mother and the family of Thomas’ late brother, according to a state tax document and a deed dated Oct. 15, 2014, filed at the Chatham County courthouse.

The purchase put Crow in an unusual position: He now owned the house where the justice’s elderly mother was living. Soon after the sale was completed, contractors began work on tens of thousands of dollars of improvements on the two-bedroom, one-bathroom home, which looks out onto a patch of orange trees. The renovations included a carport, a repaired roof and a new fence and gates, according to city permit records and blueprints.

A federal disclosure law passed after Watergate requires justices and other officials to disclose the details of most real estate sales over $1,000. Thomas never disclosed his sale of the Savannah properties. That appears to be a violation of the law, four ethics law experts told ProPublica.

The disclosure form Thomas filed for that year also had a space to report the identity of the buyer in any private transaction, such as a real estate deal. That space is blank.

“He needed to report his interest in the sale,” said Virginia Canter, a former government ethics lawyer now at the watchdog group CREW. “Given the role Crow has played in subsidizing the lifestyle of Thomas and his wife, you have to wonder if this was an effort to put cash in their pockets.”

Thomas did not respond to detailed questions for this story.

In a statement, Crow said he purchased Thomas’ mother’s house, where Thomas spent part of his childhood, to preserve it for posterity. “My intention is to one day create a public museum at the Thomas home dedicated to telling the story of our nation’s second black Supreme Court Justice,” he said. “I approached the Thomas family about my desire to maintain this historic site so future generations could learn about the inspiring life of one of our greatest Americans.”

Crow’s statement did not directly address why he also bought two vacant lots from Thomas down the street. But he wrote that “the other lots were later sold to a vetted builder who was committed to improving the quality of the neighborhood and preserving its historical integrity.”

ProPublica also asked Crow about the additions on Thomas’ mother’s house, like the new carport. “Improvements were also made to the Thomas property to preserve its long-term viability and accessibility to the public,” Crow said.

Ethics law experts said Crow’s intentions had no bearing on Thomas’ legal obligation to disclose the sale.

The justice’s failure to report the transaction suggests “Thomas was hiding a financial relationship with Crow,” said Kathleen Clark, a legal ethics expert at Washington University in St. Louis who reviewed years of Thomas’ disclosure filings.

There are a handful of carve-outs in the disclosure law. For example, if someone sells “property used solely as a personal residence of the reporting individual or the individual’s spouse,” they don’t need to report it. Experts said the exemptions clearly did not apply to Thomas’ sale.

The revelation of a direct financial transaction between Thomas and Crow casts their relationship in a new light. ProPublica reported last week that Thomas has accepted luxury travel from Crow virtually every year for decades, including private jet flights, international cruises on the businessman’s superyacht and regular stays at his private resort in the Adirondacks. Crow has long been influential in conservative politics and has spent millions on efforts to shape the law and the judiciary. The story prompted outcry and calls for investigations from Democratic lawmakers.

In response to that reporting, both Thomas and Crow released statements downplaying the significance of the gifts. Thomas also maintained that he wasn’t required to disclose the trips.

“Harlan and Kathy Crow are among our dearest friends,” Thomas wrote. “As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips.” Crow told ProPublica that his gifts to Thomas were “no different from the hospitality we have extended to our many other dear friends.”

It’s unclear if Crow paid fair market value for the Thomas properties. Crow also bought several other properties on the street and paid significantly less than his deal with the Thomases. One example: In 2013, he bought a pair of properties on the same block — a vacant lot and a small house — for a total of $40,000.

In his statement, Crow said his company purchased the properties “at market rate based on many factors including the size, quality, and livability of the dwellings.”

He did not respond to requests to provide documentation or details of how he arrived at the price.

Thomas was born in the coastal hamlet of Pin Point, outside Savannah. He later moved to the city, where he spent part of his childhood in his grandfather’s home on East 32nd Street.

“It had hardwood floors, handsome furniture, and an indoor bathroom, and we knew better than to touch anything,” Thomas wrote of the house in his memoir, “My Grandfather’s Son.”

He inherited his stake in that house and two other properties on the block following the death of his grandfather in 1983, according to records on file at the Chatham County courthouse. He shared ownership with his brother and his mother, Leola Williams. In the late 1980s, when Thomas was an official in the George H.W. Bush administration, he listed the addresses of the three properties in a disclosure filing. He reported that he had a one-third interest in them.

Thomas was confirmed to the Supreme Court in 1991. By the early 2000s, he had stopped listing specific addresses of property he owned in his disclosures. But he continued to report holding a one-third interest in what he described as “rental property at ## 1, 2, & 3” in Savannah. He valued his stake in the properties at $15,000 or less.

Two of the houses were torn down around 2010, according to property records and a footnote in Thomas’ annual disclosure archived by Free Law Project.

In 2014, the Thomas family sold the vacant lots and the remaining East 32nd Street house to one of Crow’s companies. The justice signed the paperwork personally. His signature was notarized by an administrator at the Supreme Court, Perry Thompson, who did not respond to a request for comment. (The deed was signed on the 23rd anniversary of Thomas’ Oct. 15 confirmation to the Supreme Court. Crow has a Senate roll call sheet from the confirmation vote in his private library.)

Thomas’ financial disclosure for that year is detailed, listing everything from a “stained glass medallion” he received from Yale to a life insurance policy. But he failed to report his sale to Crow.

Crow purchased the properties through a recently formed Texas company called Savannah Historic Developments LLC. The company shares an address in Dallas with Crow Holdings, the centerpiece of his real estate empire. Its formation documents were signed by Crow Holdings’ general counsel. Business records filed with the Texas secretary of state say Savannah Historic Developments is managed by a Delaware LLC, HRC Family Branch GP, an umbrella company that also covers other Crow assets like his private jet. The Delaware company’s CEO is Harlan Crow.

A Crow Holdings company soon began paying the roughly $1,500 in annual property taxes on Thomas’ mother’s house, according to county tax records. The taxes had previously been paid by Clarence and Ginni Thomas.

Crow still owns Thomas’ mother’s home, which the now-94-year-old continued to live in through at least 2020, according to public records and social media. Two neighbors told ProPublica she still lives there. Crow did not respond to questions about whether he has charged her rent. Soon after Crow purchased the house, an award-winning local architecture firm received permits to begin $36,000 of improvements.

Crow’s purchases seem to have played a role in transforming the block. The billionaire eventually sold most of the other properties he bought to new owners who built upscale modern homes, including the two vacant lots he purchased from Thomas.

Crow also bought the house immediately next door to Thomas’ mother, which was owned by somebody else and had been known for parties and noise, according to property records and W. John Mitchell, former president of a nearby neighborhood association. Soon the house was torn down. “It was an eyesore,” Mitchell said. “One day miraculously all of them were put out of there and they scraped it off the earth.”

“The surrounding properties had fallen into disrepair and needed to be demolished for health and safety reasons,” Crow said in his statement. He added that his company built one new house on the block “and made it available to a local police officer.”

Today, the block is composed of a dwindling number of longtime elderly homeowners and a growing population of young newcomers. The vacant lots that the Thomas family once owned have been replaced by pristine two-story homes. An artisanal coffee shop and a Mediterranean bistro are within walking distance. Down the street, a multicolored pride flag blows in the wind.