Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas reveals private jets and vacations paid for by Republican billionaire Harlan Crow as he releases financial information – and reveals NO gifts

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas revealed that Republican billionaire Harlan Crow paid for his private flights and meals on three trips in 2022, according to financial disclosure forms released Thursday.

In his 2022 financial disclosure form, Thomas said Crow flew him home from Dallas in February after delivering the American Enterprise Institute lecture at Crow’s property, Old Parkland, due to a ” unexpected ice storm”.

In May, Crow operated flights to Thomas on his private jet due to the “increased security risk” after a copy of Dobbs’ abortion decision was leaked. Thomas was again appearing at the American Enterprise Institute conference in Old Parkland, Texas.

A third trip in July, funded by Crow, was to Keese Mill, New York, the town adjacent to Crow’s private Adirondacks compound, Camp Topridge.

Thomas also disclosed details of a 2014 real estate deal with Crow in the new forms, but said he had not accepted any gifts in 2022.

Conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (left) revealed Republican billionaire Harlan Crow (right) paid for three of his private flights in financial disclosure forms released on Thursday.

In April, ProPublica arrested Thomas for 20 years of jet-setting with Crow, none of which was mentioned on previous financial disclosure forms.

Thomas vacationed on Crow’s superyacht and flew on Crow’s Bombardier Global 5000 jet.

Thomas went with Crow to Bohemian Grove, a male-only resort in California.

Thomas spent time at the Crow Ranch in East Texas.

And he tended to spend a week each summer at Crow’s private resort in New York’s Adirondacks, Camp Topridge, ProPublica reported.

Rates for a nearby hotel start at $2,250 a night, but Camp Topridge is even more exclusive, as guests must be personally invited by Crow.

It also features original elements, including a replica of Hagrid from Harry Potter’s cabin, a 1950s-style soda fountain, and bronze gnome statues.

A photo of the boathouse at Camp Topridge, the private Adirondacks resort owned by billionaire Harlan Crow. Camp Topridge is invite-only and has some unusual features, including a Hagrid recreation of Harry Potter’s cabin.

An image of Crow’s yacht, the Michaela Rose, which featured a giant inflatable rubber duck on the 2019 Thomases trip to Indonesia

A 2019 trip that Thomas and his wife Ginni took to Indonesia with Crow – which included private flights and time aboard the yacht, named Michaela Rose and adorned with a giant inflatable rubber duck – reportedly cost around $500,000. , the news agency said. .

Thomas’ annual salary is $285,000.

Another guest on the trip, Trump official Mark Paoletta, who was then general counsel for the Office of Management and Budget, told ProPublica he discussed the trip with an ethics attorney.

“Based on the advice of this attorney, I reimbursed the costs to Harlan,” Paoletta said.

He never answered a follow-up question about the amount he had paid.

ProPublica reported that Thomas was also on the yacht on a trip to New Zealand and around Savannah, Georgia.

The news agency also found photos of the judge wearing a shirt with the Michaela Rose logo emblazoned with “March 2007” and “Greek Islands”, suggesting that Thomas had also been on a trip at the time.

None of them have been disclosed.

A law passed after Watergate requires judges, justices, members of Congress and federal officials to disclose most gifts.

The ethics experts’ interview in ProPublica said Thomas should have disclosed the private flights and yacht trips.

Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse shows off a painting of Clarence Thomas (second from right) and Harlan Crow (right) meeting at Crow’s Adirondacks resort, Camp Topridge. The painting is on display in the New York property

Virginia Canter, a former government ethics lawyer who is now part of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics watchdog group in Washington, said Thomas “seems to have completely ignored his higher ethical obligations.”

“When a judge’s lifestyle is subsidized by the rich and famous, it absolutely eats away at public trust,” Canter told ProPublica. “Honestly, it breaks my heart.”

In a statement responding to the story, Crow acknowledged that he had extended ‘hospitality’ to the Thomases ‘over the years’, but added that justice had never asked for it and that ‘it is not was no different from the hospitality we extended to our many citizens”. other dear friends.

ProPublica also reported that Crow paid about $100,000 in tuition to have Thomas’ great-nephew, whom the judge was raising as a son, attend Hidden Lake Academy and Randolph-Macon Academy, a military school that the judge was raising. billionaire had also dated.

Several days after ProPublica’s initial report that Crow funded Thomas’s vacation, the newspaper ran a story saying the billionaire bought the house Thomas’ mother lived in, along with two other properties in her neighborhood that belonged to justice.

The new disclosure form says that in 1984, Thomas inherited a third of the trio of properties, his mother’s residence and two additional homes in Savannah, Georgia.

In 2014, he says, Crow, “a longtime friend of Filer and his wife,” bought the homes for $133,000, along with other homes and land across the street.

“Filer and his wife had invested between $50,000 and $75,000 in his mother’s home in major improvements over the years and therefore the transaction amounted to a capital loss,” the disclosure form reads.

Thomas said he disclosed rental income from the two properties, not his mother’s house, when they had tenants.

“Once these properties no longer generated rental income, Committee staff advised the registrant to remove both properties from his disclosure forms,” ​​he wrote.

“However, the Filer inadvertently did not realize that the ‘sale transaction’ for the final disposition of the three properties had triggered a new reportable transaction in 2014, even though that sale had resulted in a capital loss,” a- he declared.