Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire

[GMDino]

Thomas may be the most compromised justice in my lifetime.

https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-scotus-undisclosed-luxury-travel-gifts-crow


Long read so I won't copy and paste.

But I guess the law doesn't matter to him unless it benefits him.

They tried to warn us...

[Mike M (the other one)]

(04-06-2023, 09:05 AM)GMDino Wrote: Thomas may be the most compromised justice in my lifetime.

https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-scotus-undisclosed-luxury-travel-gifts-crow


Long read so I won't copy and paste.

But I guess the law doesn't matter to him unless it benefits him.

They tried to warn us...

couple of things:
1. We are sooo effed by not being in the right profession.
2. i guess i need to tell my friends to stop inviting me along on their vacations and trips and paying for everything.

Don't care much for it as it opens the COI door, but until you can prove that his decisions are duly influenced, then no issues.

[*pally*]

Clarence Thomas has previously failed to report his wife's income on his disclosure forms

[GMDino]

(04-06-2023, 02:17 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: couple of things:
1. We are sooo effed by not being in the right profession.
2. i guess i need to tell my friends to stop inviting me along on their vacations and trips and paying for everything.

Don't care much for it as it opens the COI door, but until you can prove that his decisions are duly influenced, then no issues.

Given Thomas' position I can't compare it to my buddy buying me dinner once in a while. I can offer nothing back in the form of any service that would help him.

But maybe I can call it a sin of omission as it looks like he was required to report it and did not?  For twenty years?

See that is the problem from where I look at it.  If it was all just a friend paying for their vacation then follow the rules and report it and that's that.  By NOT reporting it he draws more inquiries into why.

(04-06-2023, 02:44 PM)pally Wrote: Clarence Thomas has previously failed to report his wife's income on his disclosure forms

Exactly.  He has not been following the rules for a long time.

[samhain]

Idk. This is a bad look, but do we think getting perks from a conservative billionaire made him vote any differently?

[Dill]

(04-06-2023, 02:17 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: couple of things:
1. We are sooo effed by not being in the right profession.
2. i guess i need to tell my friends to stop inviting me along on their vacations and trips and paying for everything.

Don't care much for it as it opens the COI door, but until you can prove that his decisions are duly influenced, then no issues.

I think all that is needed is to prove that Thomas didn't report as required.

The requirement is there so people don't get away with what can't be "proven."

[*Nately120*]

(04-06-2023, 06:13 PM)samhain Wrote: Idk.  This is a bad look, but do we think getting perks from a conservative billionaire made him vote any differently?

Hmm, so we're going with the Shoeless Joe defense where he may have taken a payout but his batting average is so good that he clearly didn't let the payout influence his performance? 

[Dill]

(04-06-2023, 06:13 PM)samhain Wrote: Idk.  This is a bad look, but do we think getting perks from a conservative billionaire made him vote any differently?

It's a bad look because it makes it very hard to tell whether he is voting in the billionaires' interests, or the 99%.

A quick check of Thomas' voting record might help here. How does he generally vote on cases involving
the limitation of campaign donations, unions, and the like? He's pretty much on the side of "freedom," isn't he? 

Better yet, imagine that you are bringing a case to the Supreme Court which the billionaires would dislike, say one
which makes campaign spending more transparent, blocking dark money.

Why should you have to worry whether or not he will side with his friends, if voting in your favor means he could
lose $500,000 vacations? 

During a lavish Indonesian feast or around the campfire in the Adirondacks with the head of the Federalist Society, 
no one will ask questions if he votes in your favor, our favor? 

[Mike M (the other one)]

Has anything come up to the SC where it involved Crow or one of Crow's businesses/interests?

[NATI BENGALS]

Term limits?

Traitor wife did her part trying to overturn our democratic election results.
Husband getting kickbacks from a billionaire while doing his part to expand the power of the super rich and let unlimited dark money flow into our elections.

Time for Clarence to go away.

Freaking scumbag family.
I really didn’t think my disdain for the SCOTUS could get any worse after they jammed through trumps last nominee in the waning hours of his presidency. And all the lies about settled law. I was wrong. I’m even more disgusted now.

[Belsnickel]

(04-06-2023, 10:24 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Has anything come up to the SC where it involved Crow or one of Crow's businesses/interests?

Crow funds many different conservative groups that are putting cases through the courts on a regular basis. This has been going on for two decades. There is a 100% chance there has been conflict.

[*michaelsean*]

(04-07-2023, 04:47 AM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: Term limits?

Traitor wife did her part trying to overturn our democratic election results.
Husband getting kickbacks from a billionaire while doing his part to expand the power of the super rich and let unlimited dark money flow into our elections.

Time for Clarence to go away.  

Freaking scumbag family.
I really didn’t think my disdain for the SCOTUS could get any worse after they jammed through trumps last nominee in the waning hours of his presidency. And all the lies about settled law. I was wrong. I’m even more disgusted now.

There is no such thing as settled law, and that's a good thing.   Otherwise we'd have some pretty nasty rulings still in existence.  Asking nominees about it is stupid, and nominees should say so.  

[Mike M (the other one)]

Turnabout is fair play I suppose.

Black man cant have rich white friends with out ya'll getting all up in his business.

[GMDino]

(04-07-2023, 11:57 AM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Turnabout is fair play I suppose.

Black man cant have rich white friends with out ya'll getting all up in his business.

Wow.

I really hope for forgot the ninja on that.

[Mike M (the other one)]

(04-07-2023, 09:19 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: Crow funds many different conservative groups that are putting cases through the courts on a regular basis. This has been going on for two decades. There is a 100% chance there has been conflict.

Got proof? by your words should be relatively easy to prove. or just spittin in the wind?

(04-07-2023, 11:59 AM)GMDino Wrote: Wow.

I really hope for forgot the ninja on that.

Did you see one?


He's the only black person on the USSC.  Pretty clear it's targeting, just cause the Left doesn't like the way he votes.

He followed the Rules as they were. The rules changed in the last month, they are not retroactive, so has he broken any since the change? 

[GMDino]

(04-07-2023, 01:55 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Got proof? by your words should be relatively easy to prove. or just spittin in the wind?






Did you see one?


He's the only black person on the USSC.  Pretty clear it's targeting, just cause the Left doesn't like the way he votes.

He followed the Rules as they were. The rules changed in the last month, they are not retroactive, so has he broken any since the change? 

He has a history of not reporting what he was supposed to report.  I guess we'll see if he follows any new rules.

[GMDino]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/04/06/clarence-thomas-gifts-disclosure-court/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWJpZCI6IjE4ODYwODAzIiwicmVhc29uIjoiZ2lmdCIsIm5iZiI6MTY4MDc1MzYwMCwiaXNzIjoic3Vic2NyaXB0aW9ucyIsImV4cCI6MTY4MjA0OTU5OSwiaWF0IjoxNjgwNzUzNjAwLCJqdGkiOiJkNWZiMjhjZC01Y2JmLTQxNjktOTkzYy0zNmQ5YjdjYTk0MzUiLCJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy53YXNoaW5ndG9ucG9zdC5jb20vaW52ZXN0aWdhdGlvbnMvMjAyMy8wNC8wNi9jbGFyZW5jZS10aG9tYXMtZ2lmdHMtZGlzY2xvc3VyZS1jb3VydC8ifQ.JwAxUlU3qealBlp_6WDWONkl1stIJmVYxyFmfk812os

Quote:Clarence Thomas has reported receiving only two gifts since 2004


Eighteen years ago, the Los Angeles Times detailed how Thomas had reported receiving thousands of dollars’ worth of gifts — far more than the other justices on the Supreme Court at the time. That story appears to have marked a turning point for Thomas’s public disclosure of gifts.

By Emma Brown and Shawn Boburg
Updated April 7, 2023 at 1:17 p.m. EDT|Published April 6, 2023 at 7:44 p.m. EDT

Justice Clarence Thomas during the swearing in of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court in 2020. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
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“Justice Thomas Reports Wealth of Gifts” was the title of a December 2004 front-page story in the Los Angeles Times, detailing how Clarence Thomas had received gifts worth tens of thousands of dollars over the prior six years — far more than the other justices on the Supreme Court at the time.

The story appears to have marked a turning point for Thomas and his public disclosures of gifts. Since the news account was published 18 years ago, Thomas has reported receiving just two gifts, according to a Washington Post review of his financial disclosure forms posted online by nonprofit groups Fix the Court and OpenSecrets.

Thomas has come under particular scrutiny for potential conflicts of interest, in part because of the political activities of his wife, conservative leader Virginia “Ginni” Thomas. On Thursday, that scrutiny intensified: ProPublica reported that over the past two decades, Texas billionaire and conservative donor Harlan Crow repeatedly hosted the justice on his private jet, his private yacht and at his private Adirondacks retreat.

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Thomas did not report most of Crow’s largesse on public financial disclosure forms — the same kinds of forms he used to report gifts before 2004. Crow told the news outlet that he had provided hospitality to the Thomases just as he had to many other friends.

In a statement Friday, Thomas cited that personal friendship.

He said that he and his wife joined Crow on various trips. “Early in my tenure at the Court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable,” Thomas said.

Federal judges may not accept gifts from anyone with business before the court and they must report all gifts worth more than $415, according to current rules.

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Clarence Thomas has reported receiving only two gifts since 2004
Clarence Thomas has reported receiving only two gifts since 2004
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The federal courts’ policymaking body, the Judicial Conference, last month quietly adopted new rules requiring justices to provide a fuller accounting of free trips, meals and other gifts they accept from corporations or other organizations. The new rules, which came as open-government advocates and congressional Democrats criticized the Supreme Court’s ethics practices, were meant to help tighten a “personal hospitality” exemption that allowed justices to avoid reporting free trips or other gifts from friends.


Thomas said in his statement that he intended to follow those rules.

One of the two gifts that Thomas reported receiving since 2004 came from Crow: a bronze bust of Frederick Douglass, valued at $6,484.12, according to Thomas’s 2015 financial disclosure.

The other gift was an award from Yale Law School, Thomas’s alma mater, that included a glass medallion and brass plaque valued at $530, his 2014 disclosure states.

Thomas’s more recent disclosures don’t stand out. Over the past five years, seven of the 11 justices who filed annual disclosures said they had not received gifts, according to a Post review. Thomas was one of them.

In its 2004 story, the Los Angeles Times reported that Thomas had disclosed a wide range of gifts including an $800 commemorative jacket from the Daytona 500 in 1999, the year he served as grand marshal for the race, to $1,200 in tires from an Omaha businessman in 2002, according to the newspaper. He also received $100 in cigars from talk-show host Rush Limbaugh and a $5,000 check to help defray the cost of his grandnephew’s education, given to him by a Florida businessman and friend, the newspaper reported.


It added that Thomas also reported receiving gifts from Crow, including a Bible that once belonged to Frederick Douglass valued at $19,000 and a free flight on Crow’s jet to the San Francisco area, where he was Crow’s guest at the private men’s retreat known as Bohemian Grove.

Thomas declined to comment for that news article.

Crow has also donated money in support of Ginni Thomas’s work, Politico reported more than a decade ago. In 2009, she founded the nonprofit Liberty Central to harness the energy of activists in the growing tea party movement. She launched the group with $500,000 from an anonymous donor, stirring questions about whether such financial support created potential conflicts of interest for her husband on the bench.

Ginni Thomas stepped down from the organization in late 2010. Politico later revealed that Crow was the donor.


Anonymous donors also provided $600,000 to fund Crowdsourcers, an obscure conservative group led by Ginni Thomas to fight what she has called a cultural war against the left, from 2019 to 2021.

Supreme Court justices regularly get reimbursed for travel, meals and lodging related to speaking events or teaching, according to a review of their disclosure forms. But they have reported receiving few gifts over the last five years, according to the review.

Only four of 11 justices who have filed Supreme Court disclosures over the last five years reported receiving gifts.

Two jurists, Sonia Sotomayor and the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, reported giving prize money from organizations that had honored them to charity.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. disclosed he received an inscribed football helmet worth $579 from Mississippi federal judges in 2017.

And Justice Neil M. Gorsuch reported receiving a $699 pair of cowboy boots from a nonprofit affiliated with the Texas Supreme Court in 2021; a $500 fishing rod from someone named “Bob Todd” in 2019; and a $1,000 watercolor painting from another federal judge in 2018.

The justices’ disclosures for calendar year 2022 are expected to be released in June.

[Belsnickel]

(04-07-2023, 01:55 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Got proof? by your words should be relatively easy to prove. or just spittin in the wind?

Harlan Crow is a founding member of Club for Growth, an organization with a PAC and Super-PAC that has been involved in several SCOTUS cases by advertising and giving financial support for one side. He is also on the board for AEI and has been for almost 30 years, a conservative think tank that regularly submits briefs to the SCOTUS.

[Mike M (the other one)]

(04-07-2023, 03:01 PM)GMDino Wrote: He has a history of not reporting what he was supposed to report.  I guess we'll see if he follows any new rules.

He would be in the wrong IF the rules that were changed/clarified were in effect all this time, they only came into effect in the last month. 


Since 1978, the Ethics in Government Act has required judges and justices to report travel costs and other expenses that are provided to them by groups, universities and other such entities. However, it includes an exception for the “personal hospitality of any individual,” so long as the travel does not involve official business.

Both parties involved have clearly stated there was no BUSINESS during any these vacations. So no violations. 

[Mike M (the other one)]

(04-07-2023, 03:49 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Harlan Crow is a founding member of Club for Growth, an organization with a PAC and Super-PAC that has been involved in several SCOTUS cases by advertising and giving financial support for one side. He is also on the board for AEI and has been for almost 30 years, a conservative think tank that regularly submits briefs to the SCOTUS.

Definitely wrong there. 
He's donated to some Dems.

I asked for a specific example, You are the one making the claim so prove it.