Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (L) and billionaire Harlan Crow.
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The Republican billionaire donor Harlan Crow for several years paid the pricey private school tuition of a great-nephew of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, a new report reveals.
Thomas had custody of the boy, Mark Martin, at the time. He never disclosed in official filings that Crow was paying the tuition, even though he disclosed another, much less generous payment of $5,000 for a fraction of Martin’s tuition by another friend, the report by ProPublica noted. Martin is now in his 30s.
“Ethics law experts told ProPublica they believed Thomas was required by law to disclose the tuition payments because they appear to be a gift to him,” ProPublica wrote.
The same news outlet recently revealed how Crow paid for luxurious vacation trips over more than two decades for Thomas and his wife, Ginni, without the conservative justice reporting the gifts on annual financial disclosures.
ProPublica also exposed that a Crow company bought properties in Savannah, Georgia, owned by Thomas’ family, including a home where the justice’s mother still lives rent-free.
Thomas likewise had never disclosed, before the outlet’s reporting, either the trips gifted by the Texas real estate developer or the fact that he bought the properties.
That failure by Thomas to do so had led to growing calls, including by Democratic members of Congress, for ethics reform at the Supreme Court, which unlike lower federal courts does not have a mandatory code of ethics.
In a statement Thursday, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said, “With every new revelation in this case, it becomes clearer that Harlan Crow has been subsidizing an extravagant lifestyle that Justice Thomas and his family could not otherwise afford.”
“This is a foul breach of ethics standards, which are already far too low when it comes to the Supreme Court,” said Wyden, who is the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. “I gave Mr. Crow until May 8th to provide a…
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