WASHINGTON (AP) — A nearly two-year investigation by Democratic senators into the Supreme Court’s ethics uncovers more luxury travel by Justice Clarence Thomas and urges Congress to figure out a way to enforce a new code of conduct to force.
Any movement on the issue appears unlikely as Republicans prepare to take control of the Senate in January, underscoring the hurdles in imposing restrictions on a separate branch of government even as public confidence in the court has fallen to a record low.
The 93-page report released Saturday by the Democratic majority of the Senate Judiciary Committee shows that Thomas made additional trips in 2021 that were not listed on his annual financial disclosure form: a private jet flight to the Adirondacks in New York in July and a jet and yacht trip to New York City was sponsored by billionaire Harlan Crow in October, one of more than two dozen times the report notes Thomas’s luxury trips and gifts from wealthy well-wishers had brought along.
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The court adopted its first code of ethics in 2023, but leaves its enforcement up to each of the nine judges.
“The highest court in the land cannot have the lowest ethical standards,” the committee chairman, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, said in a statement. He has long advocated an enforceable code of ethics.
Republicans have said the investigation is a way to undermine the conservative majority court, and all Republicans on the committee protested the subpoenas granted to Crow and others as part of the investigation. No Republicans signed the final report, and no formal report was expected from them.
Thomas has said he was not required to disclose the trips he and his wife, Ginni, took with Crow because the major donor is a close friend of the family and disclosure of those types of trips was not previously required. The new code of ethics explicitly requires this, and Thomas has since gone back and reported on trips. Crow has maintained that he never spoke to his friend about pending cases in court.
The report traces back to Justice Antonin Scalia, who says he “established the practice” of accepting secret gifts and hundreds of outings during his decades on the court. The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg and retired Justice Stephen Breyer also made limited trips but listed them on their annual forms, the report said.
The investigation found that since his confirmation in 1991, Thomas has accepted gifts and trips from wealthy benefactors worth more than $4.75 million by some estimates, and has not disclosed much of it. “The number, value and extravagance of the gifts Judge Thomas accepted are unparalleled in modern American history,” the report said.
It also describes a luxury trip to Alaska in 2008 taken by Justice Samuel Alito. He has said he was exempt from disclosing the trip under previous ethics rules.
Alito also rejected calls to withdraw from cases involving Donald Trump or the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol after flags related to the riot were seen flying at two of Alito’s homes. Alito said the flags were raised by this woman.
Thomas has also ignored calls to step back from cases involving Trump. Ginni Thomas supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which the Republican lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
The report also pointed to scrutiny of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who, aided by her staff, has promoted sales of her books through college visits over the past decade. Judges have also heard cases involving their book publishers, or involving companies in which judges owned stock.
Biden was the most prominent Democrat to call for a binding code of conduct. Justice Elena Kagan has publicly supported the creation of an enforcement mechanism, although some ethics experts have said it could be legally difficult.
Justice Neil Gorsuch recently cited the code in recusing himself from an environmental case. He faced calls to step aside because the outcome could benefit a Colorado billionaire who represented Gorsuch before becoming a judge.
The report also calls for changes in the Judicial Conference, the oversight body of the federal courts led by Chief Justice John Roberts, and further investigation by Congress.
