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Tuesday, September 05, 2023
Justice Thomas's Disclosure Form Conceals the Value of His Gift from Harlan Crow
My new essay on Slate explains that Justice Clarence Thomas's recently filed financial disclosure form continues to conceal the value of his gifts from Harland Crow.
Here is the gist:
Clarence Thomas’ Corrected Ethics Disclosure Form Is Not Actually Correct
The thing is, even after this latest amended filing, Thomas is still at it. Thomas’ latest report, for the first time, includes disclosure of a Crow-financed vacation, in this case a week at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks, where the Thomases had been enjoying annual vacations for many years. But that disclosure raises an entirely new question.
Having acknowledged that he and his wife had been “guests” of Harlan Crow, Thomas added an explanatory note stating that the “transportation, meals, and lodging” were listed “under ‘reimbursements’ not gifts,” according to “advice from the staff of the Judicial Conference Financial Disclosure Committee (July 10).”
The difference in categories is significant because gift reports must include their “value” while reimbursements need not. Although Thomas claims that this unusual categorization is “consistent with previous filings by other filers,” he gives no examples. The other justices’ reported reimbursements were all for teaching or speaking engagements at law schools—including Notre Dame, Harvard, and Northwestern—and foundations or conferences.
No other justice listed an expense-paid vacation as a reimbursement, with the attendant concealment of its value.
Thomas’ motivation for the categorization seems obvious. The Financial Disclosure Committee’s rationale for apparently allowing it is, to put it politely, opaque. The Judicial Conference’s Guide to Judiciary Policy defines “reimbursement” as the payment or repayment for travel-related expenses “other than gifts.”
You can read the entire piece on Slate.
Posted by Steve Lubet on September 5, 2023 at 04:40 PM | Permalink
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