Over the last two decades, Justice Clarence Thomas reportedly failed to accurately report hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of income from a family holding company and claimed rents from a company that no longer exists, according to The Washington Post, citing state records and federal disclosures.
The high court justice’s financial disclosure reports claim between $50,000 and $100,000 of income from Ginger, Ltd., Partnership, a Nebraska real estate firm, that was dissolved in 2006. That’s the same year the assets and properties of the firm, founded in the 1980s by the family of his wife Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, were moved to a new company, Ginger Holdings, LLC.
The revelation comes as the Supreme Court justice is under intense scrutiny for his ethical and financial conduct, following reporting from ProPublica earlier this month that Mr Thomas accepted lavish vacations from conservative Texas billionaire and Republican donor Harlan Crow. The outlet also reported that Mr Crow bought a group of properties from Justice Thomas in Georgia, which the jurist failed to disclose, a likely violation of federal ethics laws requiring judges to report most real estate sales worth more than $1,000.
“Any presumption in favor of Thomas’s integrity and commitment to comply with the law is gone. His assurances and promises cannot be trusted. Is there more? What’s the whole story? The nation needs to know,” Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics expert at New York University, told the Post, arguing the integrity of the Supreme Court is now in “serious jeopardy.”
The Independent has contacted the Supreme Court and a lawyer for Ms Thomas for comment.
Justice Thomas and Mr Crow have both defended their relationship as proper.
"Early in my tenure at the (Supreme) Court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable," Mr Thomas said in a statement earlier this month.
"As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips during the more than quarter century we have known them," he added.
Mr Crow told ProPublica he "never sought to influence Justice Thomas on any legal or political issue."
It’s not the first time the private activities of the Thomas family have raised questions about the Supreme Court justice’s position.
Following the 2020 election, Ms Thomas privately urged Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows not to have Donald Trump concede the election, reiterating wild conspiracy theories and telling the official: “It takes time for the army who is gathering for his back."
She later told the congressional January 6 committee she regrets the “tone and content” of those messages.
In 2011, Justice Thomas, under scrutiny from watchdog groups, updated years of disclosure forms to include the fact that Ms Thomas, a conservative activist, earned more then $686,000 in income from the conservative Heritage Foundation between 2003 and 2007, a discrepancy Mr Thomas attributed to “a misunderstanding of filing instructions.”
