Clarence Thomas makes first disclosure of trips from Crow, plus 2014 sale of mom’s house

WASHINGTON – Justice Clarence Thomas reported 3 trips ultimate yr on personal jets offered by means of Dallas billionaire Harlan Crow, together with a week-long holiday to the real estate mogul’s upstate New York estate, the first such trips Thomas since becoming a member of the courtroom in 1991.

In his ethics submitting for 2022, launched Thursday, Thomas additionally said he must have disclosed in 2014 that he’d offered his mom’s house to Crow.

An investigation from ProPublica printed in April sparked an intense debate about Supreme Court ethics, revealing Crow had offered luxurious holidays to the justice for years. In his atypical submitting, Thomas defended the dearth of disclosure about trips ahead of 2022, announcing that tips the courtroom depended on didn’t name for that till ultimate spring.

Two of the Crow-provided trips indexed on Thomas’ new submitting had been to talk in Dallas, at meetings held by means of the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

The first was once in February 2022. The justice flew by means of industrial airline to Dallas, but if an “unexpected ice storm” hit, Crow offered foods and a non-public flight again to Washington, D.C., the justice reported.

The 2d was once a three-day commute in May. 10 days after an remarkable leak of a draft ruling appearing the courtroom would quickly overturn Roe vs. Wade. Security issues made it too unhealthy to fly commercially, in keeping with Thomas’ submitting.

“Because of the increased security risk following the Dobbs opinion leak, the May flights were by private plane for official travel as filer’s security detail recommended noncommercial travel whenever possible,” he wrote in an explanatory be aware.

The draft of the Dobbs ruling leaked May 2. Thomas’s commute to Dallas started May 12. The top courtroom issued the ruling June 24 that ended a half-century of constitutional coverage for abortion rights.

Thomas additionally reported a one-week commute to Crow’s luxurious property in upstate New York, in a the town known as Keese Mill, from July 7 to 13.

The estate, called Camp Topridge, was once as soon as owned by means of cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, who also owned the Mar-a-Lago estate now owned by means of Donald Trump, and whose father C.W. Post based General Foods.

The flights by means of personal aircraft, and the “lodging, food, and entertainment at the Adirondacks property” had been reportable, Thomas mentioned – not like the numerous earlier holiday trips Crow offered – since the regulations modified. He cited steering issued March 14 by means of the Judicial Conference, proscribing the “personal hospitality exemption” to “explicitly state for the first time” that personal flights and different items must be reported.

The first ProPublica file documenting Crow’s undisclosed largesse to Thomas was once printed April 6. The checklist integrated a 2019 commute to Indonesia that will have value over $500,000 if Thomas had chartered the aircraft and yacht.

Crow is chairman of one of North Texas’ maximum a success personal funding corporations, Crow Holdings, which has virtually $29 billion in property underneath control, together with actual property and securities. His overdue father, the legendary Trammell Crow, evolved the Dallas Market Center, Atlanta’s Peachtree Center and San Francisco’s Embarcadero Center.

He has shrugged off allegations of unethical conduct by means of Thomas, no longer simply over the undisclosed luxurious holidays however different circumstances of monetary make stronger that surfaced in contemporary months.

That comprises paying no less than $150,000 in boarding college tuition for a Thomas grandnephew who the justice was once elevating.

Crow additionally bought the house the place Thomas’s mom lives in 2014, regardless that Thomas didn’t checklist that sale on any ethics submitting till Thursday.

“Clarence Thomas has been the target of a 32-year-old campaign to destroy him personally,” he advised The Dallas Morning News in May.

Thomas’ newest ethics submitting supplies main points the justice hasn’t ever ahead of made public concerning the house sale.

A be aware categorized “Savannah Real Estate Transaction” says that “although outside the covered period,” Thomas sought after to supply “supplemental information regarding the 2014 disposition of certain real estate interests he held with members of his family in Savannah, Georgia.

“In 1984, filer inherited a 1/3 interest in three properties: his mother’s residence and two additional houses on the same street. In 2014, Mr. Harlan Crow, a longtime friend of filer and his wife, bought all three properties for $133,000, along with other houses/lots on the same street,” the disclosure says.

The Thomases had spent $50,000 to $75,000 on his mom’s house for upgrades, it says, so “the transaction amounted to a capital loss.”

Thomas said within the submitting that he must have reported the sale in 2014, announcing he hadn’t discovered that was once important since the homes were offered at a loss.

Crow has known as the justice and his spouse, Ginni Thomas, a distinguished conservative activist, “dear friends” since 1996 and the justice “one of the greatest Americans of our time.”

“Justice Thomas and Ginni never asked for any of this hospitality. We have never asked about a pending or lower court case, and Justice Thomas has never discussed one, and we have never sought to influence Justice Thomas on any legal or political issue,” he mentioned.

Crow has been a beneficiant donor to Republicans over time, and is regularly described as a megadonor.

In the 2024 presidential contest, he has donated each to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, the previous South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador.

He has additionally supported No Labels, a bunch that plans to supply a third-party slate if the 2024 common election finally ends up as a rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden.

Apart from the trips offered by means of Crow, Thomas reported one different commute for which he was once reimbursed.

That was once to Salt Lake City to talk in March to the Hatch Center, which offered the transportation, foods and accommodation.