I am referring, of course to the Pro Publica expose showing that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas took millions, if not tens of millions of dollars in gifts from Republican donor and conservative activist Harlan Crow.
In late June 2019, right after the U.S. Supreme Court released its final opinion of the term, Justice Clarence Thomas boarded a large private jet headed to Indonesia. He and his wife were going on vacation: nine days of island-hopping in a volcanic archipelago on a superyacht staffed by a coterie of attendants and a private chef.
If Thomas had chartered the plane and the 162-foot yacht himself, the total cost of the trip could have exceeded $500,000. Fortunately for him, that wasn’t necessary: He was on vacation with real estate magnate and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, who owned the jet — and the yacht, too.
For more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them, documents and interviews show. A public servant who has a salary of $285,000, he has vacationed on Crow’s superyacht around the globe. He flies on Crow’s Bombardier Global 5000 jet. He has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat, and to Crow’s sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks.
The extent and frequency of Crow’s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Over ½ million dollars for just one vacation.
Thomas claims that Mr. Crow is just a very good friend of his, but the relationship did not start until after Thomas joined SCOTUS.
This was an explicit quid pro quo.
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In a statement, Crow acknowledged that he’d extended “hospitality” to the Thomases “over the years,” but said that Thomas never asked for any of it and it was “no different from the hospitality we have extended to our many other dear friends.”
Through his largesse, Crow has gained a unique form of access, spending days in private with one of the most powerful people in the country. By accepting the trips, Thomas has broken long-standing norms for judges’ conduct, ethics experts and four current or retired federal judges said.
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ProPublica uncovered the details of Thomas’ travel by drawing from flight records, internal documents distributed to Crow’s employees and interviews with dozens of people ranging from his superyacht’s staff to members of the secretive Bohemian Club to an Indonesian scuba diving instructor.
Federal judges sit in a unique position of public trust. They have lifetime tenure, a privilege intended to insulate them from the pressures and potential corruption of politics. A code of conduct for federal judges below the Supreme Court requires them to avoid even the “appearance of impropriety.” Members of the high court, Chief Justice John Roberts has written, “consult” that code for guidance. The Supreme Court is left almost entirely to police itself.
This should not be the case. Congress should create legislation that creates criminally enforceable standards for Supreme Court justices, but there is no way that you'll be able to prevent the Republicans from filibustering it.
Also, we have what are fairly explicit laundering of cash payments to his wife, Ginny Thomas:
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Crow met Thomas after he became a justice. The pair have become genuine friends, according to people who know both men. Over the years, some details of Crow’s relationship with the Thomases have emerged. In 2011, The New York Times reported on Crow’s generosity toward the justice. That same year, Politico revealed that Crow had given half a million dollars to a Tea Party group founded by Ginni Thomas, which also paid her a $120,000 salary. But the full scale of Crow’s benefactions has never been revealed.
Giving credit where credit is due, the LA Times reported on Thomas' relationship with Crow in 2004, but not as thoroughly as Pro Publica has don.
After the Times story, "Thomas appears to have continued accepting free trips from his wealthy friend. But he stopped disclosing them."
Thomas is now claiming that he, "Was advised lavish gifts did not need to be reported," but that assertion does not hold up to scrutiny.
In their follow-up, Pro Publica notes that his justifications are full of sh%$.
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Thomas’ brief statement acknowledges joining Crow and his wife, who he described as among his “dearest friends,” on “a number of family trips” over the years. He also defended his failure to disclose them.“Early in my tenure at the 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,” Thomas said in the statement. “I have endeavored to follow that counsel throughout my tenure, and have always sought to comply with the disclosure guidelines.”
Clarence Thomas became a Supreme Court Justice in 1991. He reported the gifts until 2004. That is 13 f%$#ing years.
He only stopped after the LA Times reported on that he was, "Accepting much more valuable gifts than his Supreme Court colleagues."
So, Pro Publica has done a deep dive, and a very real public service here.
Of course Democratic members of Congress have written a very strong letter to Chief Justice Roberts calling for him to do his job and enforce ethics rules on the court, which is perhaps the most useless, "Norms Fairy." bullshit I've heard from the Democratic Party since Nancy Pelosi knelt wearing Kente Cloth.
And here it gets a bit more interesting, starting with a veritable rogues gallery of disloyal conservative Democrats taking money from Harlan Crow as well.
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But Texas billionaire Harlan Crow's largesse goes far beyond yacht trips and resort stays with the top conservative jurist. It also includes thousands of dollars in contributions to congressional Democrats known for bucking their party.
According to an Insider review of federal campaign finance data, Crow has given a total $5,800 to Democratic-turned-Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema's campaign account and $5,000 in May 2022 to Getting Stuff Done PAC, a leadership PAC tied to the Arizona senator.
Crow first contributed $2,900 to Sinema's campaign in June 2021 before giving another $5,800 in November 2021 — prompting the campaign to refund half of it after Crow apparently exceeded federal contribution limits.………
According to federal campaign finance data, the Texas billionaire has given $16,800 to Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey since 2018, contributing thousands as recently as October 2022.
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And Crow has contributed $12,500 to Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas since 2006. Cuellar, a conservative opponent of abortion rights, faced a strong primary challenge from progressive activist Jessica Cisneros in 2022.
This is not a surprise, and not an uncommon thing. Right winger major Republican donors spend a lot of time and money supporting Quisling Democrats.
On the other hand what follows starts to get really, REALLY,weird.
First, it turns out that Harlan Crow has been collecting some truly evil sh%$ for years, Nazi memorabilia, including a copy of Mein Kampf signed by Adolph Hitler, statues of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Ceausescu in his back yard.
These were not commissioned, they were taken from official statues of the despots.
He wanted Saddam Hussein and Pol Pot, but his agents were unable to close the deal.
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A 2003 interview with the man who acquired the statues for Mr. Crow cited failures to acquire statues of Pol Pot, the former leader of the Khmer Rouge, during a trip to Cambodia in 1997, and of Saddam Hussein on a trip to northern Iraq in 1991, as the Persian Gulf war was winding down.
He also has some Hitler paintings, paintings BY, not OF Hitler hanging on his walls:
This man has some VERY serious issues:
When Republican megadonor Harlan Crow isn’t lavishing Justice Clarence Thomas with free trips on his private plane and yacht (in possible violation of Supreme Court ethics rules), he lives a quiet life in Dallas among his historical collections. These collections include Hitler artifacts—two of his paintings of European cityscapes, a signed copy of Mein Kampf, and assorted Nazi memorabilia—plus a garden full of statues of the 20th century’s worst despots.
Crow, the billionaire heir to a real estate fortune, has said that he’s filled his property with these mementoes because he hates communism and fascism. Nonetheless, his collections caused an uproar back in 2015 when Marco Rubio attended a fundraiser at Crow’s house on the eve of Yom Kippur. Rubio’s critics thought the timing was inappropriate given, you know, the Hitler stuff.
“I still can’t get over the collection of Nazi memorabilia,” says one person who attended an event at Crow’s home a few years ago and asked to remain anonymous. “It would have been helpful to have someone explain the significance of all the items. Without that context, you sort of just gasp when you walk into the room.” One memorable aspect was the paintings: “something done by George W. Bush next to a Norman Rockwell next to one by Hitler.” They also said it was “startling” and “strange” to see the dictator sculptures in the backyard.
Norman Rockwell was, by all accounts, a pretty decent bloke, and it's a travesty that his work is hanging next to the amateur art from those two war criminals.
And then there is brother, the equally undeservedly wealthy Trammell Crow, Jr., who apparently hangs out with Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, and has been credibly accused of throwing sex parties and engaging in human trafficking like Jeffrey Epstien.
As Anna Russel would say, "I'm not making this up, you know."
A billionaire Texan property tycoon linked to the Duchess of York has been accused of financing a sex-trafficking ring in the US.
Trammell Crow Jr, who Sarah Ferguson has reportedly struck up a friendship with, has been named in a lawsuit by two women who claim he financed a sex and labour trafficking venture.
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Mr Crow inherited his large fortune from his father Fred Trammell Crow, once known as America’s biggest landlord and a major Republican donor.
He reportedly struck up an unlikely friendship with the Duchess over their “shared interest in environmental issues".
It has since emerged that Mr Crow is facing a lawsuit from two women who claim they were sexually abused in a trafficking venture for which he provided the “essential financial assistance”.
Mr Crow's lawyer, Ken C Stone, said the accusations were “absurd and blatantly false”.
It is another embarrassing episode for the Duke and Duchess of York, following Prince Andrew’s settlement over sex abuse claims last year.
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The lawsuit, filed in California last November, names Mr Crow “and at least eight other prominent Texas businessmen” in the venture.
The filing claims the trafficking venture made one of the women became "a virtual long-term sex slave" and claims another of the women was also beaten and raped.
The trafficking ring utilised doctors, a police officer and others to keep the women drugged and become “an illegal racketeering enterprise”, the lawsuit claims.
It claims Mr Crow was involved at the very start of the trafficking ring in 2010, and knew “all the details of the force, fraud, threat, and coercion... and without him the venture never could have succeeded”.
I know that this is going to get weirder and more twisted, but I also know that it will be something beyond my capability to imagine, see this New York Post (Yes, I know) story from 2016 where an old girl friend described him as, "A manscaping maven with an impeccable scent during their ménage-à -trois days."
I'm not sorry about sharing that with you. If I had to see this, you had to see this.
If people are serious about investigating, I expect to see some sh%$ come down the line that makes this look like Mr. Rogers neighborhood.
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