By John Kruzel
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Supreme Court judge Clarence Thomas has made at least three additional trips funded by a billionaire benefactor Harlan Crow The conservative judge did not announce this, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said on Thursday.
Crow, a Texas businessman and Republican donor, disclosed details of the judge’s travels between 2017 and 2021 in response to a Judiciary Committee vote last November to grant subpoenas to Crow and another influential conservative, said Senator Dick Durbin.
“The Senate Judiciary Committee’s ongoing investigation into the Supreme Court’s ethics crisis provides new information — like what we revealed Thursday — and makes it crystal clear that the Supreme Court needs an enforceable code of conduct as its members continue to choose not to to meet,” Durbin said.
A Supreme Court spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did an attorney for Crow.
Thomas was previously criticized for not disclosing gifts from Crow. Most recently, Thomas revised his 2019 financial disclosure form on June 7 to acknowledge that Crow paid for his “food and lodging” at a hotel in Bali and at a club in California.
But Thomas’ recent filing did not reveal that Crow had paid for his private jet travel in connection with the trips to Bali and California, and an eight-day yacht excursion in Indonesia, omissions that were revealed Thursday in a redacted document that The Durbin’s office said there were travel routes where Crow had provided the justice with transportation.
The document shows private jet travel in May 2017 between St. Louis, Montana and Dallas; private jet travel in March 2019 between Washington and Savannah, Georgia; and private jet travel in June 2021 between Washington and San Jose, California.
Under pressure from criticism of ethics, the judges adopted their first code of conduct last November.
Critics and some Democrats in Congress have said the code does not go far enough to promote transparency, leaves decisions on whether to take back cases up to the judges themselves and lacks an enforcement mechanism.
(Reporting by John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham)
