Key Points
- Clarence Thomas reportedly accepted luxury travel trips from billionaire Republican, Harlan Crow.
- The US Supreme Court justice is said to have gone yachting in New Zealand, and on private jet flights.
- Justice Thomas is the longest-serving justice on the US Supreme Court.
United States Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has accepted years of luxury travel trips from a billionaire Republican, according to a report, including yachting in New Zealand and private jet flights across the globe.
Staunch conservative Justice Thomas, the longest-serving justice on the court, went on one trip to Indonesia that alone was likely worth US$500,000 ($748,000) — paid for by real estate tycoon Harlan Crow, according to the non-profit ProPublica news outlet.
The ProPublica investigation, based on interviews and reviews of photographs and other documents, showed "the Supreme Court is the least accountable part of our government", legal reform action group Fix the Court said.
Justice Clarence Thomas, a staunch conservative, is the longest-serving justice on US Supreme Court. Source: Getty / The Washington Post
The 74-year-old Justice Thomas also joined Mr Crow — whose friendship with the justice the New York Times in 2011 called "unusual and ethically sensitive" — for trips to an exclusive all-male wilderness resort in California and to properties in Texas and New York state over the past two decades.
Mr Crow told ProPublica that his gifts to Justice Thomas were "no different from the hospitality we have extended to our many other dear friends", and that the two had never discussed pending cases.
In 2011, the New York Times described the friendship between real estate tycoon Harlan Crow and US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as "unusual and ethically sensitive". Source: Getty
Ethical standards
Mr Crow has made more than US$10 million ($15 million) in donations to Republican political groups, ProPublica said, including US$500,000 ($748,000) to a conservative lobbying group founded by Justice Thomas' wife Ginni Thomas.
Ginni Thomas' involvement in politics has drawn its own scrutiny for reports she took part in Donald Trump-led efforts to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Justice Thomas, who was nominated for the court in 1991 after a confirmation process in which he was accused of sexual harassment by a former aide, joined the majority of judges who ruled to overturn the national right to abortion last year.
Executive Director of MoveOn.org Rahna Epting speaks at a demonstration where MoveOn.org delivered over 1 million signatures calling for Congress to immediately investigate and impeach Clarence Thomas at the US Supreme Court on July 28, 2022 in Washington. Source: Getty / Jemal Countess
In response to Thursday's report, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin said Justice Thomas's "behaviour is simply inconsistent with the ethical standards the American people expect of any public servant, let alone a Justice on the Supreme Court".
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: "I'm not going to comment from here. There are other bodies of government who should be dealing with this".
New York congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said on Twitter the issue was "beyond party or partisanship".
"This degree of corruption is shocking - almost cartoonish. Thomas must be impeached."
Justice Thomas declined to comment to ProPublica, which also tweeted a clip of a documentary in which he said he liked driving around rural corners of America more than travelling abroad.
"I don't have any problem with going to Europe, but I prefer the United States," he said. "I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that. I'd come from regular stock and I prefer that."
