Conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas thanked Senator Ted Cruz and other Republican members of Congress for defending him against ethics complaints after bombshell reporting uncovered lavish gifts he received from a prominent GOP donor while serving on the nation’s highest court. Thomas, who appeared on the Texas senator’s podcast for a rare interview that was published Monday, called him “one of the people who actually stands up, particularly at times when others seem to wither. ProPublica’s reporting in 2023 reviewed two decades of questionable gifts to Thomas from Harlan Crow, a real estate developer and Republican donor who co-founded the right-wing tax policy organization Club for Growth.
Crow gifted Thomas week-long luxury trips, including island-hopping on Crow’s yacht with international private jet travel, as well as a $19,000 Bible that once belonged to Frederick Douglass, ProPublica uncovered. Crow also paid thousands of dollars in tuition for the justice’s grand-nephew to attend boarding schools and quietly paid Thomas for a property that was occupied by the justice’s mother. The justice has defended his relationship with Crow, writing in a statement at the time that, “as friends do,” he and his wife Virginia “Ginni” Thomas joined him “on a number of family trips during the more than quarter century we have known them.” Cruz criticized the reports as a “political smear job” at the time.
Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who introduced legislation that would have forced the court to adopt an enforceable code of conduct, called the court’s measure a “long-overdue step” to correct its “honor system” of self-governance — but falls short of accountability. Ginni Thomas, a conservative activist, also was at the center of investigations into the 2020 presidential election as she lobbied the White House with false claims supporting Donald Trump’s victory. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.” Those messages landed her in front of the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol, where she denied exerting any improper influence over her husband’s work at the Supreme Court.
In 2011, Justice Thomas updated years of disclosure forms to include the fact that his wife earned more than $686,000 in income from the right-leaning Heritage Foundation between 2003 and 2007 — a discrepancy that Thomas attributed to “a misunderstanding of filing instructions.” Thomas was confirmed to the nation’s high court in 1991 after he was nominated by then-President George H.W. Bush to succeed Thurgood Marshall, the nation’s first Black justice. He has been at the center of a series of controversial rulings and statements over the last decade as Trump rose to power and returned to office a second time.
He joined the court’s conservatives to overturn Roe v Wade and grant the president “immunity” from criminal prosecution for “officials” acts in office. He also gave Trump legal ammunition to dismiss a federal indictment for withholding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate and opened the door for challenges to voting rights and abortion drugs. During the second Trump administration, Thomas has voted to support the president’s challenges to elections and birthright citizenship, among other landmark cases with far-reaching impacts.
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