Justice Thomas’ Vacations Spark Demands for Ethics Code

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats are calling on Chief Justice John Roberts to investigate fellow Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for failing to disclose luxury vacations and other perks he received over more than 20 years from a billionaire friend.

The Senate Judiciary Committee plans to hold a hearing on the perks to address the larger issue of an enforceable code of ethics for the Supreme Court.

The Senate Democrats wrote a letter to Roberts Monday demanding that he take remedial action.

“The Senate Judiciary Committee … has a role to play in ensuring that the nation’s highest court does not have the federal judiciary’s lowest ethical standards,” the letter says. “You have a role to play as well, both in investigating how such conduct could take place at the court under your watch, and in ensuring that such conduct does not happen again.”

The letter ended by saying that if the Supreme Court does not resolve its ethics problems, the Senate might impose legislation on them.

Thomas described the gifts as separate from his work on the Supreme Court but some members of Congress are unconvinced. They are demanding that he resign.

They also want assurances of a new method for ensuring the Supreme Court is subject to the same kind of enforceable rules as any other high-level government officials. The justices are subject to the court’s ethical guidelines but they are largely voluntary.

The vacations and gifts from Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow would have cost Thomas and his wife, Virginia, around a half-million dollars if they purchased them by themselves, according to the nonprofit media outlet ProPublica, which first published the story.

During a 2019 vacation, Thomas and his wife flew to Indonesia on Crow’s private jet to take a nine-day excursion on the wealthy real estate developer’s 162-foot yacht.

Thomas did not identify the trips on his annual financial disclosures. 

He mentioned Crow and his wife in a statement last week that said, “As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips during the more than quarter century we have known them.”

Reports about the perks from Crow led left-wing firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., to threaten to introduce articles of impeachment against Thomas.

“This is beyond party or partisanship,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a tweet. “This degree of corruption is shocking — almost cartoonish. Thomas must be impeached.”

The separation of powers in the Constitution implies that only the Supreme Court can regulate actions of its justices.

Thomas denied the gifts created a conflict of interest.

“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 his statement.

He added that the “guidelines are now being changed” and he would follow them “in the future.”

Among lawmakers who want to tighten ethics rules for the Supreme Court is Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.

He wants greater oversight to make sure the justices comply with the 1978 Ethics in Government Act. Its provisions include one that requires judges to disclose most gifts worth more than $415.

After ProPublica published its report on Thomas’ paid vacations, Whitehouse tweeted, “All of this needs robust investigation, and it’s the chief justice’s job to make sure that occurs.”

Roberts said shortly after being confirmed by the Senate in 2005 that he wanted to protect the integrity of the Supreme Court. He has held internal discussions on a code of conduct but has been unable to get new rules established.

One of the holdups is concern among the justices the rules could constrain them from ruling on important issues of public interest.

Roberts responded to calls for a Supreme Court code of ethics in a 2011 year-end report that said it was unnecessary.

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