Following the recent revelations on ProPublica about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s financial disclosures not mentioning a real estate deal made with a big Republican donor in 2014, the Supreme Court Justice has announced that he would be amending his previous disclosures.
In recent weeks the relationship between Thomas, a conservative justice, and Harlan Crow a billionaire GOP donor has come under fire. In the ProPublica report, it was noted that Thomas has accepted lavish gifts, including expensive trips on his yacht, jet, and private resorts.
Most recently it was disclosed that Thomas sold three Georgia properties to Crow, in a transaction that totaled over $130,000. However, that financial transaction was never disclosed in any of Thomas’ statements.
Last week on CNN, Crow disclosed that he bought the properties hoping to use them to create “a public museum at the Thomas home dedicated to telling the story of our nation’s second black Supreme Court Justice.”
A source close to Thomas also told CNN that Thomas did not think he needed to disclose the real estate transaction as he was losing money in them. Similarly, Thomas has claimed that he did not need to disclose his trips with Crow because they feel under the category of “personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court.”
The recent revelation regarding Thomas’ lack of disclosures has led to many Democrats calling for a stricter ethical code to be created for Supreme Court justices.
