Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are urging Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. to investigate a recent ProRepublica report that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas accepted luxury trips for more than two decades from a major GOP donor.
The luxury trips to various locations, including Indonesia, New Zealand, California, Texas and Georgia, spanned over two decades and were gifted to Thomas by Harlan Crow, a Republican real estate developer.
Thomas’ trips appeared nowhere on Thomas’ financial disclosures. Justices, judges, members of Congress and federal officials are required by law to disclose most gifts. Supreme Court justices must declare gifts higher than $415 in value, including any transportation that substitutes for commercial transport.
In a letter to Roberts, Chairman Richard Durbin and the panel’s 10 other Democratic members say the committee will hold a meeting, citing “the need to restore confidence in the supreme court’s ethical standards.”
“And if the court does not resolve this issue on its own, the committee will consider legislation to resolve it. But you do not need to wait for Congress to act to undertake your own investigation into the reported conduct and to ensure that it cannot happen again. We urge you to do so.”
The Democrats lay the issue at Roberts’ feet, telling him, “you have a role to play as well, both in investigating how such conduct could take place at the court under your watch and in ensuring that such conduct does not happen again. The report describes conduct by a sitting justice that he did not disclose to the public and that is plainly inconsistent with the ethical standards the American people expect of any person in a position of public trust.”
Since the damning report was published, Crow denied the gifts were to use to influence Thomas’ political sway. Justice Thomas claims he had been advised he was not required to report that type of “personal hospitality.”
