Senate Dems push Supreme Court to investigate Thomas bombshell

WASHINGTON (CN) — If the U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t take action to address recent reports that one of its sitting justices ran afoul of federal disclosure regulations, Congress will step in, the head of the Senate’s legal committee told the high court’s lead jurist Monday.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin urged Chief Justice John Roberts to look into a series of opulent luxury vacations that went undisclosed by fellow jurist Clarence Thomas and that were bankrolled by conservative real estate developer Harlan Crow.

Investigative journalism publication ProPublica last week brought Thomas’s trips — which included a private jet flight to Indonesia and a stay at Crow’s exclusive lakeside resort in the Adirondacks — to light.

“The report describes conduct by a sitting Justice that he did not disclose to the public and that is plainly inconsistent with the ethical standards the American people expect of any person in a position of public trust,” Durbin and a coalition of Senate Democrats told Roberts in a letter dated Monday.

The Illinois Democrat said that it was not only the duty of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees federal courts and judges, to ensure that Supreme Court justices conform to ethical standards. “You have a role to play as well,” Durbin told the chief justice, “both in investigating how such conduct could take place at the court under your watch, and in ensuring that such conduct does not happen again.”

Thomas, who has called Crow a longtime friend, said in a statement Friday that his fellow justices had advised him that he would not have to report his vacations with the real estate mogul, some of which would have cost over $500,000. The jurist resolved to comply with recent changes to judiciary reporting requirements going forward.

Durbin, meanwhile, complained to Roberts that it wasn’t the first time that the Senate has had to sound the alarm over the Supreme Court’s ethical standards, pointing to a 2012 exchange between members of Congress and the high court in which the chief justice refused a request from lawmakers to adopt a judicial code of conduct, citing the Supreme Court’s 2011 year-end report that concluded no such action was necessary.

The judiciary committee chairman raised concerns that the high court had declined to take further action on its ethical standards despite what he called known concerns about Thomas’s connection with Crow, pointing to a New York Times article from the time that tied the two together.

“This problem could have been resolved then,” Durbin wrote. “Instead, according to ProPublica’s reporting, Mr. Crow’s dispensation of favors escalated in secret during the years that followed. Now the court faces a crisis of public confidence in its ethical standards that must be addressed.”

In light of recent developments, the senator urged Roberts to revisit adopting the proposed judiciary code of conduct.

Durbin added that the Senate Judiciary Committee would soon hold a hearing on the Supreme Court’s ethical standards, although he did not say whether the panel would request that any of the justices testify at such a hearing, or when one might take place.

A spokesperson for Durbin’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

If the Supreme Court does not take action to resolve Senate Democrats’ ethical concerns, the lawmaker wrote, the committee will take matters into its own hands and consider legislation addressing the problem, Durbin told Roberts.

“But you do not need to wait for Congress to act to undertake your own investigation into the reported conduct and to ensure that it cannot happen again,” the lawmaker wrote. “We urge you to do so.”

Legal experts have said that Thomas’s conduct in accepting Crow’s hospitality may have violated the law, but, if so, it is unclear whether the jurist would face any consequences.

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