Senate Democrats Ask For Investigation Of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas

Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse and Ron Wyden asked Attorney General Merrick Garland for a special counsel investigation of potential ethics and tax law violations.

In a letter sent last week, two Democratic senators called on the U.S. attorney general to put together a special counsel investigation of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas over a series of potential ethical and tax law violations.

Recent reports have found that Thomas has repeatedly failed to disclose travel, gifts and other benefits given by wealthy businessmen in his financial disclosure reports, as required by federal law.

A 2023 ProPublica investigation revealed that Thomas had accepted two luxury trips in 2019 paid for by Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow that were not listed on disclosure forms. Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is investigating these possible violations, found that Thomas had also left out at least three other paid private jet trips from 2017 to 2021 on his disclosures.

In the letter, Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), chair of the Judiciary subcommittee on federal courts, and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel to investigate the potential violations of ethics rules and tax laws, along with false statements, involving Thomas’ receipt of favors from wealthy political donors.

“We do not make this request lightly,” the lawmakers wrote. “The evidence assembled thus far plainly suggests that Justice Thomas has committed numerous willful violations of federal ethics and false-statement laws and raises significant questions about whether he and his wealthy benefactors have complied with their federal tax obligations