Cruises on a mega-yacht, flights in a private jet… The most conservative of the judges of the American Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas, has accepted for more than twenty years many luxury stays from a billionaire known for his donations to the party Republican, says a press survey published Thursday.
The online investigative magazine ProPublica said he interviewed “dozens of people” and went through internal documents to prove that the magistrate had accepted these largesse from businessman Harlan Crow without declaring them.
In 2019, Clarence Thomas and his wife spent a 9-day vacation with Harlan Crow in Indonesia, enjoying his private jet, yacht and personal chef, at an estimated cost of half a million dollars.
ProPublica also indicates that Clarence Thomas goes almost every summer to a property of the businessman in the Adirondacks, in the State of New York, and that he accompanied him to the “Bohemian Grove” in California, a exclusively male elite club reserved for political, artistic, media or business personalities.
Potential violations of an ethics law
“Stunning” revelations, said in a press release the association Fix The Court, which campaigns for a reform of the Supreme Court, temple of American law. This confirms, in her view, the need for a large-scale, elected-led reinvention of the Court’s responsibilities, including the establishment of stricter rules on the gifts received by its members.
“To preserve what remains of the public’s respect for the Supreme Court of the United States, Justice Thomas must immediately resign,” tweeted left-wing lawmaker Hank Johnson. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has called for impeachment proceedings.
By failing to declare these gifts, the judge may have breached a 1978 ethics law passed after Watetgate. The friendship between the judge, who has the most seniority in the Court, and the real estate magnate had already been the subject of an article in the New York Times in 2011, which described it as “unusual and ethically sensitive”.
And it’s not the first time that Clarence Thomas’ name has been linked to controversy: his wife Ginni, a lobbyist and activist, was involved in Donald Trump’s crusade to prove – wrongly – that the 2020 presidential election was for him. had been stolen. Once revealed the SMS and e-mails she sent for this purpose, the left had castigated an apparent conflict of interest and called on her husband to recuse himself from any electoral file.