Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (DR.I.), a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked the body that oversees federal courts to refer Justice Clarence Thomas to the Department of Justice to investigate the failure to properly report gifts from billionaires. philanthropist.
“It would be best for the Chief Justice to initiate a proper investigation, but after a week of silence from the Court and this latest disturbing report, I am asking the Judicial Conference to step in and refer Justice Thomas to the Attorney General for an investigation,” Whitehouse said in a statement. which was released Thursday night.
Whitehouse, joined by other Democrats, including Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), previously called on Chief Justice John Roberts to investigate Thomas’ failure to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts from billionaire Harlan Crow. The gifts, which ProPublica found, included several expensive luxury vacations on Crow’s superyacht for Thomas and his wife, Ginni Thomas, and regular use of Crow’s private jet. Thomas did not disclose the gift in his annual personal financial report.
In addition to luxury vacations and the use of a private jet, Crow bought Thomas’ ancestral home in Georgia where his mother still lives with him at inflated prices, ProPublica reported Thursday. While Thomas has listed his interest in the home in the financial report in the past, he did not disclose the sale to Crow as required by law.
Supreme Court justices are required to disclose certain gifts and sales under federal ethics laws. In the past, some gifts of lodging and hospitality provided by friends were not disclosed. Thomas claimed that he believed he should not have disclosed the travel, lodging and meals provided by Crow.
In March, the Judicial Conference, the body that sets the rules for federal courts, updated its disclosure guidelines to clarify that judges must report gifts of lodging and hospitality not provided in private homes that are directly owned by individual travelers and private travelers who make gifts to those places.
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The financial disclosure law that Thomas says has been violated states that a judge must “knowingly and willfully” fail to report gifts that should have been disclosed. The offense can result in a fine of up to $50,000, or, if the offender makes a false report, imprisonment for not more than one year.
The Judicial Conference is a body designated by ethics law to refer members of the judiciary to the Attorney General for investigation.
Whitehouse’s call for a referral for an investigation into Thomas follows a similar letter to the Judicial Conference sent by the ethics watchdog group the Campaign Legal Center. The letter notes that Thomas previously disclosed a similar travel gift from Crow, but stopped disclosing it after the Los Angeles Times reported on his relationship with the billionaire in 2004. This sudden change in disclosure “indicates knowledge of the requirements” that he disclose the gift. , a prerequisite for guilt under ethical law.
The CLC letter also notes that Thomas has a long history of failing to disclose gifts and income. In 2011, Thomas amended 20 years of financial statements to document that she had failed to disclose her husband’s income to various conservative political and educational institutions even before properly disclosing that income.
It’s been 54 years since the Justice Department opened an investigation into a sitting Supreme Court justice.
In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson nominated Judge Abe Fortas to replace the retiring Earl Warren as Chief Justice. A bitter campaign to defeat the nomination of a liberal justice to lead the court, fueled by the antisemitism (Fortas was Jewish) of Southern segregationists like Republican Strom Thurmond and Democrat James Eastland, began.
Fortas’ nomination was ultimately blocked by a filibuster, but he remained on the bench as an associate judge. In the process, Thurmond attacked Fortas for accepting $15,000 paid by the firm’s former clients and law partners for nine speeches at American Universities.
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In 1969, news reports stated that Fortas had received an annual retainer of $20,000 from the financier Louis Wolfson’s family foundation since 1966. Wolfson had been convicted of illegal stock trading and appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court. The court did not take the case and Fortas did not participate in the deliberations, but the payment made corruption.
The Justice Department opened an investigation into Fortas after assistant attorney general and future Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist convinced President Richard Nixon that it would be legal to do so. Fortas eventually resigned from his position after Attorney General John Mitchell threatened to prosecute him for tax fraud if he did not do so. The ethics law that Thomas allegedly violated was extended to cover judges after revelations of payments to Fortas and other judges.
The campaign against Fortas was the start of a conservative push to take over the Supreme Court. This provided Nixon with two open court seats, first the Chief Justice seat was vacated by Warren and then Fortas. Nixon chose Warren Burger to replace Warren when he tried to fill Fortas’ seat with Southern conservative segregationists to fulfill a campaign promise for Thurmond, but Senate Democrats blocked him twice.
The episode launched a judicial battle that culminated in a conservative victory after President Donald Trump replaced the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg with conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
The shift in the court on the right side up Thomas from the border to the middle of the court block aimed at playing back the decisions of the 20th century pronounced by such liberals as Fortas. But now he is facing the same controversies for violating the laws that were passed during Fortas.