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.
In 2008, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas decided to send his teenage grandnephew to Hidden Lake Academy, a private boarding school in the foothills of northern Georgia. The boy, Mark Martin, was far from home. For the previous decade, he had lived with the justice and his wife in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Thomas had taken legal custody of Martin when he was 6 years old and had recently told an interviewer he was “raising him as a son.”
Tuition at the boarding school ran more than $6,000 a month. But Thomas did not cover the bill. A bank statement for the school from July 2009, buried in unrelated court filings, shows the source of Martin’s tuition payment for that month: the company of billionaire real estate magnate Harlan Crow.
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Before and after his time at Hidden Lake, Martin attended a second boarding school, Randolph-Macon Academy in Virginia. “Harlan said he was paying for the tuition at Randolph-Macon Academy as well,” Grimwood said, recalling a conversation he had with Crow during a visit to the billionaire’s Adirondacks estate.
ProPublica interviewed Martin, his former classmates and former staff at both schools. The exact total Crow paid for Martin’s education over the years remains unclear. If he paid for all four years at the two schools, the price tag could have exceeded $150,000, according to public records of tuition rates at the schools.
Thomas did not report the tuition payments from Crow on his annual financial disclosures. Several years earlier, Thomas disclosed a gift of $5,000 for Martin’s education from another friend. It is not clear why he reported that payment but not Crow’s.
Thomas knew he should have reported these payments as a gift. How do we know? He disclosed a gift from another friend for this same relative's school tuition. But he did not disclose the gifts from Crow, as he did not disclose Crow's lavish travel gifts and real estate purchases.
— Noah Bookbinder (@NoahBookbinder) May 4, 2023
Quote by Raine:
I'll believe it when I see it.
What an assknob.
Donald Trump has told reporters in Ireland that he’s cutting his golfing trip short to come back to “confront” E. Jean Carroll at his NYC rape trial. Carroll is expected to rest her case today. “I have to leave early. I don’t have to but I choose to.” https://t.co/d1gmtYvo8i
— Molly Crane-Newman (@molcranenewman) May 4, 2023
On Obstruction of Congress:
— Brandi Buchman (@Brandi_Buchman) May 4, 2023
All 5 PROUD BOYS on trial, Henry TARRIO, Ethan NORDEAN, Joseph BIGGS, Zachary REHL, and Dominic Pezzola were found GUILTY.
On Obstruction of Congress:
— Brandi Buchman (@Brandi_Buchman) May 4, 2023
All 5 PROUD BOYS on trial, Henry TARRIO, Ethan NORDEAN, Joseph BIGGS, Zachary REHL, and Dominic Pezzola were found GUILTY.
FOXLEAKS: Tucker Carlson asks makeup artist if “pillow fights ever break out” in the women’s bathroom in new behind-the-scenes video https://t.co/M2d6THLRdq pic.twitter.com/vSRooVlzVH
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) May 4, 2023