CNN
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Justice Clarence Thomas has traveled on Republican megadonor Harlan Crow’s private jet more times than previously known, Senate Democratic leaders revealed Thursday.
According to information obtained by Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, Thomas flew on Crow’s private jet during interstate travel in 2017, 2019 and 2021, as well as during a previously publicized trip to Indonesia in 2019, during which Thomas also stayed on Crow’s mega yacht.
The newly revealed private jet trips paint a clearer picture of the lavish travel enjoyed by Thomas, funded by friends of the justice with ties to conservative politics.
Thomas has been accused of failing to include the trips in financial disclosure documents released annually by judges, but he and his defense argue he followed the court’s disclosure rules as they were understood at the time.
The revelation was likely to further inflame tensions between the Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, and Democrats in Congress, who have been calling for tougher ethics rules for more than a year. A series of ethics scandals involving Justices Thomas and, more recently, Samuel Alito, have pushed the court’s public approval rating to an all-time low.
Last year, as ProPublica reported on the justices’ jet-setting lifestyles, the federal judicial policy-making body said private jet travel should be reported by justices, closing a loophole that supposedly exempted Justice Thomas from reporting “personal entertainment” he received from ultra-wealthy friends. Critics of the Supreme Court argue that its current understanding of the disclosure rules should be applied retroactively.
Through a court spokesperson, Thomas did not respond to CNN’s inquiries about the new revelations or why the trip had not been made public.
The judges have previously said they were told at the time that they didn’t have to disclose the entertainment they received from Clowes, but that they would now follow recent changes to the guidelines. Advocates for the judges point to a 2012 letter from the Judicial Conference, which administers rules on financial disclosure for judges, that said assertions at the time that judges should have reported their trips with Clowes were false.
When the 2023 financial disclosures were released last week, Thomas said he had “inadvertently omitted” from previous financial reports hotel expenses paid by the Crows during their 2019 tour of Indonesia, as well as lodging expenses that same year at a private club in Monte Rio, California, where they have membership.
However, Durbin did not disclose that he was traveling on Crowe’s private jet on any of the trips he revealed.
In addition to that trip, the released documents show: Durbin said Thomas flew on Crow’s plane from St. Louis to Montana to Dallas in 2017, from Washington, DC, to Savannah, Georgia, and back in 2019, and from Washington, DC, to San Jose, California, and back in 2021.
“The Senate Judiciary Committee’s ongoing investigation into the Supreme Court’s ethics crisis has produced new information, such as that revealed today, that makes it abundantly clear that the Court needs an enforceable code of conduct as Supreme Court Justices continue to choose not to meet the demands of the times,” Durbin said in a statement, referring to a Supreme Court ethics bill introduced by Senate Democrats. Durbin’s attempt on Wednesday to pass the bill on the full Senate floor was blocked by Republicans through procedural maneuvering.
Elliot Burke, a lawyer for Mr. Thomas, said the trip that Senate Democrats drew attention to on Thursday fell under the “entertainment exemption.” Mr. Thomas and others have previously said they understand the disclosure rules to exclude situations involving “personal entertainment.”
“As a result, as Justice Thomas has already explained, he and many other federal judges have been advised that they do not have to report personal entertainment gifts from friends who have no business before the court,” Burke told CNN.
Mark Paoletta, a former Trump administration official and leading supporter of Justice Thomas, also told XNews that Justice Thomas’ disclosures of hotel and private club stays on previous trips were not covered by the personal entertainment exemption even before the disclosure guidelines were changed in 2023. He argued that judges’ stays at friends’ “homes, planes and boats” were exempt under the rules until the 2023 revisions.
Durbin and other Democratic lawmakers began investigating gifts and lavish trips received by Thomas following a shocking ProPublica report that detailed a trip to Indonesia with Crow (during which Thomas and his wife, Ginny Thomas, stayed on Crow’s 162-foot yacht) and other lavish trips the Thomas family took with Crow and his wife.
Crowe, who Thomas described as one of the family’s “closest friends,” said he never discussed the matter with Thomas in the judicial arena.
“Mr. Crow reached an agreement with the Senate Judiciary Committee and responded to requests for information going back seven years,” Crow spokesman Michael Zona said of the information revealed Thursday.
“Despite Mr. Crow having serious and continuing concerns about the lawfulness and necessity of the investigation, he negotiated in good faith with the Committee from the outset to resolve the matter. As a condition of this agreement, the Committee agreed to close its investigation regarding Mr. Crow,” Zona added.
This story has been updated with additional reports.
