Kaine, Colleagues Call on Chief Justice Roberts to Investigate Justice Thomas Following Alarming Report
WASHINGTON D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine teamed up with U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), U.S. Representative Hank Johnson (D-GA), and 19 of their colleagues in Congress in sending a letter calling on the Chief Justice of the United States to launch an ethics investigation into Justice Clarence Thomas’s extensive billionaire-funded luxury travel and other outstanding allegations of misconduct. The letter comes a day after a bombshell ProPublica report exposed that Justice Thomas and his wife accepted extravagant vacations worth as much as $500,000 from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow.
“In light of yesterday’s reporting by ProPublica that Justice Clarence Thomas has repeatedly accepted and failed to disclose gifts and travel from billionaire Harlan Crow, we write to request an investigation into these and other outstanding allegations of unethical, and potentially unlawful, conduct at the Supreme Court. To date, the Court has barely acknowledged, much less investigated, these allegations. Amidst all of this—perhaps due in part to the Court’s inaction—the American people’s trust in the Supreme Court has plummeted to an all-time low. We believe that it is your duty as Chief Justice ‘to safeguard public faith in the judiciary,’ and that fulfilling that duty requires swift, thorough, independent and transparent investigation into these allegations,” wrote the members.
“It is no longer viable for the Supreme Court to argue that it ‘consults’ the code of conduct governing lower court judges. And it is not accurate to state that the justices follow the same financial disclosure rules as other federal judges, when there are such flagrant violations. While the Judicial Conference recently updated those rules to reject definitions that Justice Thomas may have thought justified his lack of disclosure, your annual report more than a decade ago on the judiciary cast doubt on whether the Court believes it must abide by those rules —notwithstanding the federal law governing disclosure that expressly applies to Supreme Court justices. It is well past time for the Supreme Court to align with the rest of government in a proper code of ethics enforced by independent investigation and reporting,” the members added.
Kaine—a former civil rights lawyer and legal ethics professor—has long supported efforts to uphold ethics rules for justices and judges. Last week, Kaine joined a letter urging the Senate Appropriations Committee to include language in next year’s government funding legislation to direct the Supreme Court to adopt binding, transparent, and enforceable ethics rules.
The letter was also signed by Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Ed Markey (D-MA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Tom Carper (D-DE), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Peter Welch (D-VT), Jack Reed (D-RI), and Mazie Hirono (D-HI) and Representatives Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Gerald Connolly (D-VA), Deborah Ross (D-NC), Mike Quigley (D-IL), Madeleine Dean (D-PA), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Cori Bush (D-MO), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), and Steve Cohen (D-TN).
Full text of the letter is available here and below.
Dear Chief Justice Roberts:
In light of yesterday’s reporting by ProPublica that Justice Clarence Thomas has repeatedly accepted and failed to disclose gifts and travel from billionaire Harlan Crow, we write to request an investigation into these and other outstanding allegations of unethical, and potentially unlawful, conduct at the Supreme Court. To date, the Court has barely acknowledged, much less investigated, these allegations. Amidst all of this—perhaps due in part to the Court’s inaction—the American people’s trust in the Supreme Court has plummeted to an all-time low. We believe that it is your duty as Chief Justice “to safeguard public faith in the judiciary,” and that fulfilling that duty requires swift, thorough, independent and transparent investigation into these allegations.
According to ProPublica, “[f]or more than two decades, [Justice] Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year . . . without disclosing them.” These gifts were provided by Texas real estate magnate Harlan Crow, “[a] major Republican donor for decades.” Gifts that Mr. Crow reportedly provided to Justice Thomas include international travel on private jets and yachts, and stays at private resorts, including annual retreats to a resort owned by Mr. Crow’s company. The value of some of these gifts exceeds $500,000, according to ProPublica’s reporting.
Justice Thomas has disclosed almost none of these gifts over the past twenty years. Federal financial disclosure laws require senior government officials, including Supreme Court justices, to report gifts such as these annually. The limited exceptions to these laws are intended to allow government officials to enjoy hospitality in the course of ordinary, personal friendships. These exceptions are not meant to allow government officials to hide from the public extravagant gifts by wealthy political interests. It is telling that Mark Paoletta, the Thomases’ lawyer who accompanied the Justice on at least one of these trips, was informed by executive branch ethics counsel that he needed to reimburse Mr. Crow.
A proper investigation should inquire who accompanied Justice Thomas on these undisclosed trips. Current reporting shows at least one individual active before the Court: Leonard Leo, who played an instrumental role in the appointment of several members of the Court and whose dark-money front groups funded ads for their confirmations and now appear before the Court. We have reason to believe that Mr. Crow himself is connected to multiple groups that have filed amicus briefs with the Court. Yet the public has no way of knowing who else with interests related to Justice Thomas’s official duties joined these trips.
Just last year, a right-wing activist admitted to coordinating a previously undisclosed 20-year, $30 million judicial lobbying campaign at the Supreme Court. As part of this operation, this activist reportedly “coached” wealthy donors “to wine, dine and entertain conservative Supreme Court justices” in an attempt to “embolden the justices” to write “unapologetically conservative” opinions. These donors apparently “financed numerous expensive dinners with [Justices] Thomas, Alito, Scalia and their wives at Washington, D.C. hotspots” and hosted at least one Justice at a private retreat. According to the activist who led this campaign, the donors involved in this lobbying effort were even able to secure advance notice from Justice Alito of the Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in a pending case. While the Court called that concern “uncorroborated,” there was abundant corroboration that the activist knew in advance and communicated that knowledge. This episode too has never been investigated.
Over the course of the past year, Justice Thomas has participated in numerous cases implicating his wife’s activities related to the 2020 election and the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Justice Thomas’s failure to recuse in these cases raises questions about whether he violated both federal law and canons of judicial ethics regarding conflicts of interest and recusal. It has been said that he knew nothing of his spouse’s activities; that is an assertion of fact that can and should be investigated, and would be in the ordinary course for other judges and officials.
It is no longer viable for the Supreme Court to argue that it “consults” the code of conduct governing lower court judges. And it is not accurate to state that the justices follow the same financial disclosure rules as other federal judges, when there are such flagrant violations. While the Judicial Conference recently updated those rules to reject definitions that Justice Thomas may have thought justified his lack of disclosure, your annual report more than a decade ago on the judiciary cast doubt on whether the Court believes it must abide by those rules —notwithstanding the federal law governing disclosure that expressly applies to Supreme Court justices. It is well past time for the Supreme Court to align with the rest of government in a proper code of ethics enforced by independent investigation and reporting.
Should the Supreme Court continue to refuse to act swiftly on these matters, we will continue to press Congress to act to restore accountability and ethics at the highest Court in the land.
Sincerely,
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