Influential Democrats and court lawyers are demanding action after a ProPublica report published Thursday outlined Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ undisclosed ties to GOP megadonor Harlan Crow.
Thomas “has received luxury trips almost every year” from Crow for more than two decades without reporting it, ProPublica reported, citing travel records and interviews. Thomas’ failure to disclose the trip appeared to violate a law that requires judges, members of Congress and other federal officials to report most gifts, including private jet flights, according to the article.
Brian Fallon, executive director of Demand Justice, a progressive judicial advocacy group, urged the Senate not to let “this extraordinary display of corruption and lawlessness go unanswered.”
“The Senate Democrats cannot force Thomas to resign or give him a clearly deserved impeachment trial, but they can hold a hearing to further expose Justice Thomas’ real violation of the law and justice of the Republican deep ties to donors on the right,” Fallon said.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (DR.I.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called for more oversight through the courts, which lack binding ethical codes.
“It’s crying out for the kind of independent inquiry that the Supreme Court — and only the Supreme Court, in all government — has refused to do,” Whitehouse said.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (DN.Y.) said Thomas should be impeached.
“This is beyond party or partisanship. The level of corruption is appalling – almost cartoonish,” he wrote on Twitter.
Thomas has been under fire over ethics issues. He failed to recuse himself in the case brought by President Donald Trump who wanted to block the House election committee investigating the January 6, 2021 uprising, to gain access to White House documents and communications, although his wife worked with Trump supporters to cancel the 2020 Election.
Thomas did not respond to ProPublica’s inquiries and has not responded to the report.
Crow told ProPublica he and his wife never discussed any case with Thomas, and “never sought to influence Justice Thomas on legal or political issues.”
Read the full ProPublica report here.