A Supreme Court Justice for Sale

For over 20 years, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas accepted luxury gifts from billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow valued at more than $4.75 million. Private jet trips across the globe. Lavish yacht vacations. A quarter-million-dollar RV he never fully paid for. Private school tuition for a family member. Real estate deals.

And he disclosed almost none of it.

This isn’t a matter of interpretation or legal gray areas. Ethics law experts are unanimous: Thomas violated federal disclosure laws passed after Watergate specifically to prevent this kind of corruption. Yet he faces no investigation, no sanctions, no accountability whatsoever.

This is what an accountability-free Supreme Court looks like.

The Harlan Crow Connection

ProPublica’s groundbreaking investigation revealed that Thomas accepted luxury trips from Harlan Crow virtually every year for two decades. Crow is a Dallas billionaire, major Republican donor, and real estate magnate with business interests that regularly come before federal courts.

The scale is staggering:

Private jet travel: Thomas flew on Crow’s Bombardier Global 5000 jet—a $30 million aircraft—on numerous occasions. A Senate investigation found at least three previously undisclosed private jet trips beyond what Thomas later acknowledged.

Superyacht vacations: In 2019 alone, Thomas and his wife Ginni took a nine-day vacation in Indonesia aboard Crow’s superyacht—a trip that cost more than $500,000. Thomas vacationed on this yacht around the globe, including a 2021 voyage through New York harbor.

Exclusive retreats: Thomas attended California’s ultra-exclusive Bohemian Grove and stayed at Crow’s sprawling East Texas ranch—luxuries far beyond what a Supreme Court justice’s $285,000 salary could support.

The total value? More than $4.75 million in gifts and travel since Thomas’s 1991 confirmation, according to Senate investigations.

It Wasn’t Just Travel

The gifts went far beyond vacation trips:

Real estate deal: Crow bought property from Thomas in Georgia in 2014—a transaction Thomas never disclosed. Four ethics law experts told ProPublica this violated federal disclosure law. Crow bought not just Thomas’s mother’s house but also two vacant lots, in a deal that transferred money directly to a sitting Supreme Court justice.

Private school tuition: Crow paid private school tuition for a relative Thomas said he was raising “as a son.” The tuition at these elite schools can exceed $50,000 per year. Thomas never disclosed these payments.

The luxury RV loan: A Senate Finance Committee investigation found that Thomas never fully repaid a $267,230 loan from a wealthy friend to buy a luxury motorhome. Thomas made interest payments but allegedly never paid a dime toward the principal—effectively converting a loan into a gift.

Each of these should have been disclosed under federal law. None were.

The Law Is Crystal Clear

Federal law requires Supreme Court justices and other officials to disclose gifts, travel, and financial transactions. This law was passed after Watergate specifically to prevent conflicts of interest and ensure public trust.

Ethics law experts are unanimous that Thomas violated these disclosure requirements. As one expert told ProPublica, “If Justice Thomas received free travel on private planes and yachts, failure to report the gifts is a violation of the disclosure law.”

Thomas’s defense has shifted over time. Initially, he claimed he wasn’t required to disclose “personal hospitality.” When pressed, he acknowledged he should have disclosed some trips, claiming he “inadvertently omitted” them. But even after amending some disclosures, many gifts remain unreported.

The word “inadvertently” is doing heavy lifting. These weren’t one-time oversights. This was a pattern of accepting lavish gifts for 20 years while systematically failing to disclose them to the public.

Conflicts of Interest: The January 6 Problem

The ethics scandals extend beyond undisclosed gifts to active conflicts of interest Thomas refuses to address.

His wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, is a longtime conservative activist who pressured White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to pursue efforts to overturn the 2020 election. She helped lead the “Stop the Steal” campaign and attended the January 6, 2021 rally near the White House.

When cases involving the 2020 election and January 6 reached the Supreme Court, legal ethics experts were unanimous: Thomas must recuse. One called it “the easiest recusal analysis case you could ever imagine.”

Thomas not only refused to recuse—he was the lone dissenting vote when the Court allowed the House January 6 Committee to access Trump White House documents. The only justice willing to block the investigation into an insurrection his own wife helped promote.

Despite calls from Democrats and ethics watchdogs, Thomas has participated in multiple January 6-related cases without stepping aside or even publicly responding to the recusal requests.

Zero Accountability

The most shocking part of this scandal isn’t the violation—it’s the complete absence of consequences.

The U.S. Judicial Conference announced Thomas would not face federal investigation into the ethics violations. Despite Senate investigations documenting the scope of unreported gifts, despite unanimous expert opinion that laws were broken, Thomas faces no sanctions.

The Supreme Court has no enforceable ethics code. Unlike every other federal judge, Supreme Court justices answer to no one. They can accept millions in gifts, participate in cases involving their spouses’ political activism, and face zero accountability.

Thomas knows this. That’s why he can issue statements claiming he did nothing wrong while simultaneously amending old disclosures to add trips he previously “inadvertently omitted.” He’s admitting violations while insisting he followed the rules—because he knows nothing will happen either way.

What This Means for Reform

Senator Ron Wyden captured the essence of the problem: “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.”

But the problem isn’t just Thomas. It’s a system that allows a Supreme Court justice to accept $4.75 million in gifts from a partisan billionaire with interests before the Court, refuse to recuse from cases involving his wife’s political activism, violate federal disclosure laws for two decades, and face absolutely no consequences.

This is what minority rule looks like in practice. Thomas was appointed by a president who lost the popular vote, confirmed when Republicans represented a minority of Americans, and now exercises unchecked power with lifetime tenure and zero accountability.

The Supreme Court desperately needs reform. Not just term limits or expansion, but an enforceable ethics code with real penalties. And ultimately, that requires reforming the Court’s composition—because the current majority will never voluntarily limit their own power.

The Thomas scandal isn’t an aberration. It’s a feature of an accountability-free judiciary that has been captured by wealthy interests and operates without meaningful oversight.

Conclusion: Above the Law

Clarence Thomas’s conduct demonstrates what happens when the most powerful court in America operates without accountability. For 20 years, he accepted millions in luxury gifts from a billionaire with business before the courts, failed to disclose them as required by law, refused to recuse from cases involving his wife’s political activism, and faced zero consequences.

This isn’t just about one justice’s ethical failures. It’s about a broken system that allows those failures to continue unchecked.

When Supreme Court justices are literally above the law they’re supposed to interpret, reform isn’t optional—it’s essential.