Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas Reportedly Accepted Luxury Gifts from Billionaire Republican Mega-Donor

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has for decades been the recipient of "luxury vacations" — some of which would normally cost as much as $500,000 — via billionaire GOP mega-donor Harlan Crow, a new ProPublica report alleges.

The outlet cites annual week-long retreats to Crow's private resort in the Adirondacks, vacations at Crow's ranch in East Texas, and a nine-day trip that Thomas and his wife took to Indonesia in 2019 — complete with island-hopping aboard super-yachts and private jets.

"For more than two decades," the outlet reports, "Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them, documents and interviews show."

As a Supreme Court justice, Thomas has a salary of $285,000. The trips are not included on his financial disclosures, ProPublica reports, which — according to ethics experts the outlet interviewed — could violate a law requiring justices, judges and other public servants to disclose most gifts.

Thomas has not released a statement in the wake of the report, though Crow issued his own lengthy statement in which he said he and his wife had been "very dear friends" with the Thomases since 1996.

The trips, he added, were personal in nature.

"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," Crow's statement reads. "More generally, I am unaware of any of our friends ever lobbying or seeking to influence Justice Thomas on any case, and I would never invite anyone who I believe had any intention of doing that. These are gatherings of friends."

A 2011 report by The New York Times found that Crow had previously done other favors for the Supreme Court justice and his wife, such as financing the purchase and restoration of a multimillion-dollar cannery in Georgia — which has been described as a "pet project" of Thomas'.

The reports about Justice Thomas raise questions about his ethics and come on the heels of various reports about the actions of his wife, Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, who the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riots found had communicated with allies of former President Donald Trump about overturning the 2020 presidential election results.

Emails and text messages made public by the committee showed that Ginni privately urged former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to do what he could to keep Trump in power, despite President Joe Biden's win. Other communications showed that Thomas sent emails pressuring Republican lawmakers in Arizona to choose their own electors — a responsibility that state law puts in the hands of voters.

In an interview with the committee last year, Thomas said she regretted "the tone and content," of those messages, adding: "it was an emotional time, and I was texting with a friend who I had known a long time. So I really find my language imprudent and my choices of sending the context of these emails unfortunate."