Many stories have appeared in the past few months about the lavish gifts bestowed on Justice Clarence Thomas by his billionaire “friends.” The press focused on his failure to disclose those gifts. To me, the more compelling question is why Supreme Court Justices and other federal judges with life tenure are allowed to accept any gift with a value in excess of $25. A Christmas card? Sure. More than that, no. When I worked in the U.S. Department of Education as Assistant Secretary of Education, the federal ethics rules were strong and clear: federal officials could not accept any gifts. You could not allow anyone to buy you lunch. Period. Why shouldn’t the same standard apply to federal judges?

Jay Kuo writes on his blog The Status Kuo about a move by two Democratic Senators to seek accountability for Thomas. Kuo is a graduate of Stanford and earned his law degree at Berkeley.

He writes:

We’ve all felt the frustration. A series of bombshell reports revealed last year that Justice Clarence Thomas has been bought and paid for many times over the last two decades. He accepted gifts from his billionaire friends who, directly or indirectly, had business before the Court. He flouted every ethical duty and law requiring him to report these gifts, and he apparently even failed to report significant income he received in the form of a large forgiven loan.

The Senate has been stonewalled in its efforts to investigate Thomas, not only by Republican senators closing ranks to protect him, but also by Thomas’s billionaire allies such as Leonard Leo, who has so far refused to cooperate with investigators. Leo likely knows he can run out the clock by forcing Democrats to file suit in federal civil court, where his judicial allies are well placed to protect him in any event.

There has been no opportunity to impeach Thomas, of course, with the House currently in Republican hands. And pressure upon Chief Justice Roberts to address collapsing confidence in the Supreme Court has resulted only in a set of unenforceable ethical guidelines and a refusal by the Chief Justice to even meet with Democratic Senate leaders…

Early last week, Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting a special counsel to investigate possible violations of law by Justice Thomas. We only learned of the letter on Tuesday of this week after the senators went public with their request. 

The upshot of this request is that Thomas is now on notice. Not only his lack of ethics as a justice but his actual criminality is on the table and could receive a much closer look. It opens a front against the Supreme Court’s conservative majority that did not exist before, and the stakes are now much higher.

In today’s piece, as a refresher I’ll walk through some of the many ways in which Justice Thomas has apparently violated federal ethical and tax laws by accepting gifts and failing to disclose them. I’ll then focus on what the two senators are asking for and why some billionaires might be a bit antsy. Finally, I’ll discuss the political ramifications of the special counsel request and Attorney General Garland’s response. 

A justice on the take

It’s been over 15 months since ProPublica dropped the first bombshell story of Justice Clarence Thomas’s deep corruption: luxury vacations, super yacht cruises, private jets and exclusive resorts, all paid for by his pal with the Dickensian, villainous name of Harlan Crow. 

Contrary to federal disclosure laws, Thomas reported none of this.

ProPublica followed up shortly thereafter with damning accounts of how Crow also held the pursestrings of Thomas’s extended family. Crow’s company, it turns out, had purchased the home of Thomas’s mother, and she still resides there rent free. Crow ordered and paid for expensive improvements on the house—a carport, roof repair, new fence and gate. And he assumed the property’s tax bill, which the Thomases used to have to pay.

Thomas disclosed none of this.

Then another bombshell. ProPublica reported in August of last year that Thomas had more than one sugar daddy. Four other wealthy men, whom Thomas met after becoming a Supreme Court justice, had showered lavish gifts upon him for years, including:

  • 38+ destination vacations
  • 26 private jet flights
  • 12 VIP passes to pro and college sporting events
  • 2 stays at luxury resorts in Florida and Jamaica
  • 1 standing invite to an uber-exclusive golf club

And that’s just what could be uncovered from public records and their investigation. As I wrote at the time,

According to ethics experts who spoke to ProPublica, for items like costly tickets to sporting events, there is simply no way to characterize that other than as a gift with a clear dollar value, often in the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. The same goes for luxury vacations that took place at hotel resorts rather than at people’s homes. 

Then we learned that Thomas’s corruption went even further than fancy, millionaire lifestyle gifts or perks for his family. According to a report by the New York Times, which was later confirmed through a Senate investigation, a wealthy friend of Thomas, who had loaned him the money to buy his dream RV, forgave the quarter million dollar plus loan on it. As those familiar with tax law know, a forgiven loan is taxable income unless somehow exempted, but Thomas apparently never reported it either. 

Months of efforts to get the Justice and his billionaire friends to cooperate with Senate investigators resulted only in a revised financial declaration by Thomas, which still appears to omit several gifts. Many other things remain unexplained, including any credible reason for failing to disclose the gifts and any explanation of the unreported taxable event of the loan forgiveness on his RV.