According to US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, lavish travels done with a millionaire GOP donor complied with requirements.
According to a ProPublica investigation published earlier this week, Mr. Thomas got holidays from real estate billionaire Harlan Crow nearly every year over the past two decades.
Annual gift disclosures are required of Supreme Court judges. Mr. Thomas claimed that he was encouraged to believe that “this sort of personal hospitality” did not exist.
The vacations included several on Mr . Crow’s luxury yacht and private plane, as well as a week spent every summer in the Adirondack mountains, according to ProPublica. According to the non-profit news website, one trip to Indonesia in 2019 could have cost up to $500,000 (£402,725).
Mr. Thomas said in a statement on Friday that he sought “advice from my colleagues and others in the judiciary” and was assured that “this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends who did not have business before the Court was not reportable.”
Following the publication of the ProPublica piece, numerous Democratic senators demanded a probe into Mr . Thomas as well as a tighter code of behavior for Supreme Court justices.
The recent report is not the first time Mr. Thomas’ private vacations have been called into question.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Mr . Thomas got gifts and private jet trips from Mr . Crow in 2004, including a $15,000 Abraham Lincoln statuette and a $19,000 Bible originally owned by 19th century US black abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Mr. Thomas did not respond at the time.
Last year, Mr . Thomas was chastised for failing to recuse himself from election-related cases after it was discovered that Ginni Thomas regularly lobbied Trump White House personnel to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Mrs. Thomas later told a congressional committee investigating the violence at the US Capitol on January 6 that she regretted “all those texts” and that she was “probably just emoting” during an “emotional time.”
