Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who reportedly accepted lavish gifts of travel from a GOP donor without reporting them, has only reported two gifts since 2004, according to financial disclosure reports. According to the Washington Post, which reviewed the reports, a 2004 Los Angeles Times story about the many gifts Thomas had reported over the previous six years "appears to have marked a turning point for Thomas and his public disclosures of gifts." The 2004 story noted that Thomas had reported far more gifts than other Supreme Court justices at the time.
Since then, the only two gifts Thomas has reported were an award from Yale Law School in 2015, valued at $540, and a bronze bust of Frederick Douglass in 2014, valued at around $6,500, the Post reports. Thomas' disclosure states that the latter gift was from real estate magnate Harlan Crow, the billionaire who provided Thomas with unreported luxury vacations for many years, according to a ProPublica investigation. The Post notes very few gifts have been reported by any of the justices in recent years. Only four of the 11 justices to have served over the last five years reported gifts, including Sonia Sotomayor and the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who said they donated prize money from organizations to charity.
Under the current rules, all gifts worth more than $415 must be reported and justices can't accept gifts from anybody with business before the court. The federal judiciary strengthened disclosure requirements for judges last month, tightening the "personal hospitality" loophole and making it very clear that "transportation that substitutes for commercial transportation" is a gift that must be reported, the AP reports. Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern at Slate argue that even under the old rules, Thomas clearly broke the law, since Crow loaning out his private jet for Thomas' personal use can only be considered "hospitality" by "torturing the English language beyond all recognition." (Democrats are calling for an investigation and possible impeachment.)
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