A report by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee details new allegations about the “lavish gifts” that U.S. Supreme Court justices have received from donors.
The 93-page reportThe document released Saturday represents the culmination of a nearly 20-month investigation led by outgoing Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin.
It builds on that previous reporting from the news agency ProPublica, which raised questions about possible conflicts of interest at the country’s highest court.
However, the report claims to have uncovered never-before-reported trips allegedly taken by Judge Clarence Thomas at the expense of real estate developer Harlan Crow, a prominent supporter of the Republican Party.
While other judges are also named in the report, Thomas is singled out for particular censure.
“The number, value and extravagance of the gifts accepted by Judge Thomas are unique in modern American history,” the report said.
Judge Thomas has not yet publicly responded to the report’s allegations.
Prominent Senate Democrats like Durbin have long pushed for the Supreme Court to adopt a watertight ethics code to prevent conflicts of interest and ensure compliance with disclosure requirements.
In their report, Democrats criticized Supreme Court Chairman John Roberts for not taking more forceful steps to address the apparent ethical lapses.
“Chief Justice Roberts’ continued unwillingness to implement the only viable solution to the Court’s ethical crisis – an enforceable code of conduct – requires that Congress take action to restore public trust in the highest court in the land,” it said it in the report.
It accused the court of failing to address “an ethical crisis of its own making.”
In the wake of ProPublica’s investigation, Roberts took steps to establish a Supreme Court Code of Ethics.
The court has never had such a code. But critics pointed out that the new code, which judges unanimously approved in November 2023, did not include ways to enforce its principles or investigate possible violations.
This has led to further public outcry. The Gallup polling institute reported On December 17, it said trust in the U.S. justice system had fallen to a record low, making it an outlier compared to other relatively wealthy countries.
Gallup found that, on average, 55 percent of residents of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries expressed trust in their courts.
In the United States, however, this number was only 35 percent.
Saturday’s report is likely to add to that skepticism. The report itself acknowledges the crisis of public faith.
“The public is now far more aware of the extent of the largesse that certain judges have received and how these judges and their billionaire benefactors continue to act with impunity,” it said.
The report said that “judges appointed by presidents of both parties” had engaged in ethically dubious behavior. In it, the left-wing judge Sonia Sotomayor is criticized for initially not providing any information about travel and accommodation at the University of Rhode Island during a book tour.
However, the report reserves some of its harshest criticisms for Judge Thomas and his conservative colleagues, Samuel Alito and the late Antonin Scalia.
Many of the incidents have already been described in detail elsewhere. For example, the report notes that Justice Thomas failed to recuse himself in cases in which his wife, conservative activist Ginni Thomas, had a hand in the outcome. The report alleges that this is a violation of federal law.
ProPublica had previously chronicled Thomas’ travels aboard Crow’s yacht and private jet, potentially worth thousands of dollars. But Saturday’s report also highlights two newly revealed trips in October 2021 to Saranac, New York, and New York City.
In previous public statements, Thomas has maintained he “always tried to comply with disclosure guidelines.” He also referred to his outings with Crow as “family trips” that he took with some of his “dearest friends.”
Another friend of Judge Thomas, attorney Mark Paoletta, replied to the Democrats’ report on social media.
He accused Democratic senators of “slandering” Justice Thomas and attacking the court, which currently has a six-to-three conservative supermajority.
“This entire investigation has never been about ‘ethics,’ but rather an attempt to undermine the Supreme Court,” Paoletta wrote.
“The left has invented recusal standards to attack the judges (and) try to stop them from proceeding. It didn’t work.”
Earlier this year, in June, Republican senators blocked a Democratic-led bill that would create an enforcement mechanism for ethics violations in courts, called the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal and Transparency Act.
But Republicans like Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina questioned the constitutionality of the bill, calling it an overreach.
In January, Republicans are expected to have the majority in the Senate, which is currently led by Democrats. Once they do this, they will have control of both houses of Congress.
