Justice Thomas accepted previously undisclosed private jet flight to New Zealand, Senate Democrat says

Justice Clarence Thomas took a previously undisclosed flight on a private jet owned by GOP megadonor Harlan Crow in 2010, a top Senate Democrat said Monday – the latest in a series of revelations that come as the high court is under pressure to strengthen its ethics practices.

Justice Clarence Thomas took a previously undisclosed flight on a private jet owned by GOP megadonor Harlan Crow in 2010, a top Senate Democrat said Monday – the latest in a series of revelations that come as the high court is under pressure to strengthen its ethics practices. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden said US Customs and Border Protection records reviewed by the committee showed Thomas and his wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, flew from Hawaii to New Zealand on Crow’s jet on November 19, 2010, and then returned on the jet a week later. The flight was not listed on Thomas’ financial disclosure reports and is the most recent example of the conservative justice accepting luxury travel from Crow becoming public. Earlier examples of that travel documented by ProPublica last year – including travel on Crow’s yacht, the Michaela Rose – prompted widespread calls for ethics reform at the court. “Neither Mr. Crow nor Justice Thomas have disclosed the full scale of the Thomas’s use of the Michaela Rose and private jets courtesy of Mr. Crow, even as the Congress continues to uncover additional international private jet travel with Mr. Crow that Justice Thomas failed to disclose on his ethics filings,” Wyden wrote in a letter to Crow’s attorney on Monday. Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, is focused on the potential tax implications of the gifts Crow made to Thomas. “I am deeply concerned that Mr. Crow may have been showering a public official with extravagant gifts, then writing off those gifts to lower his tax bill,” Wyden wrote.