A top Senate Democrat is giving GOP megadonor Harlan Crow an ultimatum after newly published revelations he paid for most—if not all of—the $150,000 tuition costs for the grandnephew of conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' schooling: voluntarily disclose all of the money he'd given him or risk the wrath of Congress.
In a statement Thursday, Oregon Democrat and U.S. Senate Finance Committee chairman Senator Ron Wyden threatened Crow with the potential of a Congressional inquiry into a number of undisclosed gifts Crow had made to Thomas over the years.
The gifts, which included boat trips, lodging and other perks, have raised serious ethical questions about money and influence on the nation's highest court and has reignited debate over the objectivity of one of the court's most conservative voices.
On Thursday, investigative news outlet ProPublica—which first broke the story—published a new investigation alleging Crow had helped pay for a relative Thomas was raising "as a son" to attend a highly prestigious boarding school—an off-the-books gift ethics lawyers described as "unprecedented" under the court's ethical code. Particularly given the fact Thomas had reported other, smaller gifts like a $1,500 set of tires in past financial disclosures.
Wyden agreed—particularly given Crow's longstanding ties to think tanks and other groups favoring conservative legal theories and judges.
"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," Wyden said in a statement. "This is a foul breach of ethics standards, which are already far too low when it comes to the Supreme Court."
He added in the statement Crow will have until May 8th to provide a full account of the gifts he provided to Justice Thomas's family.
Should he fail to comply, Wyden wrote, the committee would "explore using other tools at the committee's disposal" to obtain the information.
Newsweek has contacted Wyden's office via email for comment on what those actions could include, including whether he would issue subpoenas to either individual involved.
Numerous other justices have faced questions of impropriety after revelations of Crow's financial activities.
Some, like Senate Budget Committee chairman Sheldon Whitehouse, have raised questions in the past about how conservative Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was able to pay off substantial sums of debt prior to his confirmation, while conservatives have criticized liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor's declination to recuse herself from multiple copyright infringement cases involving book publisher Penguin Random House after receiving several million dollars in advance payments from subsidiaries of the publisher for her work.
Crow, however, has received the most scrutiny.
After ProPublica's initial story, Wyden personally wrote to Crow on April 24 asking him to voluntarily release a full accounting of all the gifts he'd given Thomas over the years, saying the unprecedented arrangement between a wealthy benefactor and a Supreme Court justice "raises serious concerns related to federal tax and ethics laws."
"The secrecy surrounding your dealings with Justice Thomas is simply unacceptable," Wyden wrote. "The American public deserves a full accounting of the full extent of your largesse towards Justice Thomas, including whether these gifts complied with all relevant federal tax and ethics laws."
Friends of Clarence Thomas, however, have defended their behavior.
Mark Paoletta, a longtime friend of Thomas' said the justice did not have to report the payments because his relative was not his "dependent child" as defined in the disclosure law.
Crow, meanwhile, told the outlet in a statement he had helped pay the tuition of other children, and that the allegations of impropriety were largely overblown.
"Harlan Crow has long been passionate about the importance of quality education and giving back to those less fortunate, especially at-risk youth," the statement provided to the outlet said. "It's disappointing that those with partisan political interests would try to turn helping at-risk youth with tuition assistance into something nefarious or political."
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Nick Reynolds is a senior politics reporter at Newsweek. A native of Central New York, he previously worked as a ... Read more
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