Topline
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas took even more luxury trips paid for by real estate magnate Harlan Crow without disclosing them than had previously been reported, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said Monday, asking Crow in a letter whether his gifts to Thomas are part of a broader scheme to “lower his tax bill”—including allegedly paying for Thomas to travel in Russia.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas poses at the Supreme Court in Washington, DC on October 7, … [+]
Key Facts
Wyden, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, sent a letter to Crow’s attorney Monday asking about the full extent of Crow’s travel with Thomas, as multiple reports since 2023 have detailed how the wealthy magnate has treated Thomas and his wife to luxury vacations for decades—largely without Thomas recording them on his financial disclosures.
The Senate Finance Committee has discovered Thomas traveled on Crow’s private jet on a round trip between Hawaii and New Zealand in 2010, Wyden said, which had not previously been disclosed.
A relative of Thomas also reported witnessing the justice travel on Crow’s private yacht in the Caribbean, Russia and the Baltics—with the trip to Russia also including travel via helicopter—according to the senator.
That Thomas “accepted free travel to Russia paid for by a billionaire and failed to disclose the trip” is “undoubtedly concerning and merits continued investigation,” Wyden wrote.
Wyden accused Crow of improperly classifying his private yacht as a for-profit business but actually just using it for him and his friends, alleging Crow’s yacht use “has all the markings of a tax scheme to write off the cost of operating and maintaining a pleasure yacht used entirely for the Crow family’s enjoyment” and suggesting Crow may have committed “unacceptable tax avoidance, or worse, outright tax evasion.”
The Supreme Court has yet to respond to a request for comment, but Crow’s spokesman Michael Zona told The New York Times Crow has “always followed applicable tax law” and Wyden’s inquiries “have no legal basis and are only intended to harass a private citizen.”
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What To Watch For
Wyden’s letter to Crow’s attorney asks for a full accounting of all the justice’s trips with Crow by August 26, though Zona’s response to the Times suggests they likely will not comply. A spokesman for the Senate Finance Committee told the Times its investigation into Crow’s taxes and any potential issues would likely be a “long process” if the real estate magnate doesn’t turn over his tax records voluntarily, which could lead the committee to try and get them from the Internal Revenue Service directly. Thomas has previously amended his financial disclosure forms to note past trips he’s taken with Crow—claiming he was previously told he didn’t have to disclose them—and it remains to be seen whether he’ll do the same with the trips flagged in Wyden’s letter.
Crucial Quote
“I am deeply concerned that Mr. Crow may have been showering a public official with extravagant gifts, then writing off those gifts to lower his tax bill,” Wyden wrote in his letter to Crow’s attorney Michael Bopp. “Any effort to mischaracterize expenses from trips involving personal hospitality as business expenses is a run of the mill tax scam, plain and simple.”
Chief Critic
Both Thomas and Crow have previously denied any wrongdoing in response to the reports of Thomas’ travel with Crow, as the justice had claimed he was solely accepting hospitality from close friends and had been advised the trips did not have to be disclosed. Thomas started disclosing some of his trips with Crow last year, claiming he was now doing so because of a rule change that requires justices to report “transportation that substitutes for commercial transportation,” but was previously told to “exclude gifts received as the personal hospitality of any individual.” He then disclosed two additional trips from 2019 in a disclosure made public in June.
Key Background
ProPublica first reported in April 2023 that Thomas had accepted luxury travel from Crow for 20 years, mostly without disclosing it, kicking off a series of reports about Thomas accepting scores of gifts from wealthy friends that has drawn widespread criticism from the left. Wyden’s report comes after the Senate Judiciary Committee said in June it also uncovered trips Thomas had taken without disclosing them. Thomas has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, but the controversies inflamed existing ethics issues with the justice already under scrutiny for his wife Ginni Thomas’ right-wing activism. Thomas’ controversies are part of broader ethics issues that Supreme Court justices have faced in recent years—particularly Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito—which have ramped up efforts by Democratic lawmakers to impose a binding code of ethics on the high court like lower federal judges have to follow. President Joe Biden endorsed those efforts last week, but ethics legislation is still unlikely to pass Congress, as Republicans remain staunchly opposed.
