The action marks a significant step-up in efforts by Democratic senators. The Supreme Court has been embroiled in an ethics controversy in recent years over Thomas, and a Whitehouse aide said it may be the first time they have asked for a special counsel to investigate a Supreme Court justice. Whitehouse sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, while Wyden is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
Jeremy Fogel, a former federal judge and president of the Berkeley Institute of Justice, said the Justice Department has the legal authority to appoint a special counsel to investigate Thomas, but whether it will actually do so is another matter. “Inevitably it’s going to be seen as political retaliation for a judge issuing a ruling he didn’t like,” he said. “I don’t see how you get out of that framework.”
The Justice Department declined to comment on the request.
Special counsels are typically appointed when attorneys general want to assure the public that sensitive investigations are conducted fairly and without political considerations. During his tenure, Garland appointed three special counsels to oversee investigations into former President Donald Trump, President Biden and the president’s son, Hunter Biden.
“We do not make this request lightly,” Whitehouse and Wyden said in a statement. “The evidence gathered to date clearly shows that Judge Thomas has willfully and repeatedly violated federal ethics and false statement laws and raises serious questions about whether he and his wealthy benefactors complied with their federal tax obligations.”
Mr. Thomas and his lawyer, Elliot S. Burke, did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but Mr. Burke has previously said that Mr. Thomas had sought to comply with financial disclosures about gifts and travel that existed at the time.
“Justice Thomas has always been committed to full transparency and compliance with the law, including with respect to reportable personal travel,” Burke said in a statement last year. He called the failure to report the travel “completely inadvertent.”
Mr. Whitehouse and Mr. Wyden said they wanted a special counsel to investigate a $267,000 loan Mr. Thomas took out in 1999 to buy a luxury motor coach., He added that he hasn’t received sufficient answers about how Thomas handled the matter.An investigation by the Senate Finance Committee concluded that a significant portion of the loan from Thomas’ friend, businessman Anthony Welters, was forgiven in 2008. The committee found that Thomas didn’t report the loan on his financial disclosure forms and questioned whether he reported it as income on his taxes as required by law.
Thomas has not previously commented publicly about the loan, but Welters told The Washington Post last year: He believed Thomas had “paid off the loan.”
The senators also are asking a special counsel to investigate multiple instances of jet trips, yacht trips, home renovations, tuition, luxury sports tickets, lodging and other gifts that Thomas did not disclose in his annual financial reports. The gifts were exposed in a series of ProPublica stories last year. Many of the gifts were paid for by Texas billionaire Harlan Crow, a friend of Thomas’ and a major Republican donor.
Additionally, senators are calling for a special counsel to investigate $25,000 in consulting fees paid by conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo to Thomas’ wife, Virginia “Ginnie” Thomas. The payment was first revealed by The Washington Post last May. Some ethics experts said it raised questions about whether Thomas should have recused himself from certain cases. Neither Clarence nor Ginnie Thomas have responded to the allegations. in response to a request for comment about the payments made at the time.
Judges Whitehouse and Wyden said the failure to disclose the gifts and payments may violate federal law requiring government officials to disclose gifts, loans and other benefits. They also want to know whether Thomas’ supporters paid gift taxes and whether the payments from Leo to Ginni Thomas were part of a joint gift program or whether additional disclosures were required by the judge.
Last month, the White House and Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., asked officials at the National Judicial Conference, which oversees judicial ethics issues, to explain how they are handling the revelations about Thomas. They have not yet received a response. Lawmakers had previously asked the conference to report Thomas to the Justice Department. Regarding possible ethical violations.
The Senate Judiciary Committee found last month that Thomas took three flights paid for by Crow between 2017 and 2021 but failed to report them. Burke said Thomas didn’t have to report the trips because it was before the high court clarified its own ethics code, saying unpaid travel must be reported as gifts. Thomas reported taking three flights on Crow’s jet in 2022, after the policy change.
justice It also amended its 2019 financial disclosure last month to reflect lodging and other expenses paid by Crow during his stay. Trips to Bali and clubbing in California.
