Two Democratic senators have called on the Justice Department to criminally investigate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas over travel gifts and a luxury car loan from wealthy donor friends.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, DR.I., who chairs the Judiciary subcommittee on the federal courts, and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden of Oregon sent a letter last week, asking Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel to examine whether Thomas violated federal ethics and tax laws when he failed to disclose as income more than $267,000 from a loan that would have been forgiven in 2008.
“We do not make this request lightly,” the senators wrote. “The evidence gathered thus far clearly suggests that Judge Thomas committed numerous willful violations of federal ethics and misrepresentation laws and raises significant questions about whether he and his wealthy benefactors met their federal tax obligations.”
Spokespeople for the Supreme Court and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday night.
The Senate Finance Committee said last year that reviewed documents from Thomas’s friend, Anthony Welters, and concluded that Thomas failed to pay principal or interest on a loan Welters gave to Thomas and his wife in 1999 for a luxury bus. Senators said at the time that Thomas had made interest-only payments on the loan before stopping payments.
Elliot S. Berke, Thomas’ attorney, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday night. He argued in a letter to the Finance Committee this year that Thomas “made payments to Mr. Welters regularly until the terms of the agreement were fully satisfied.”
In the letter to Garland, the two senators also referred to free trips aboard a private yacht and jet, among other gifts, from billionaire Harlan Crow and other wealthy benefactors that they said were largely omitted from disclosure forms. Thomas’ financial situation. The gifts were first reported by ProPublica last year.
In a statement last month, Berke said the Judicial Conference amended a provision allowing for a personal hospitality exemption and that Thomas “fully complied with the new disclosure requirement.”
Thomas last month acknowledged two 2019 trips with Crow in his annual financial disclosure report. In the same month, the Senate Judiciary Committee records released showing Crow provided Thomas with additional undisclosed trips.
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