Key takeaways:
- The Senate Judiciary Committee has called on Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to investigate Justice Clarence Thomas for failing to disclose 20 years’ worth of lavish gifts and luxury travel from a GOP megadonor.
- The Committee also said that it plans to hold a hearing on the “need to restore public confidence in the Supreme Court.”
- The ProPublica report revealed that GOP donor Harlan Crow had funded lavish trips for Thomas for years, and that Thomas had failed to disclose the gifts and trips as required by law.
The Senate Judiciary Committee has called on Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to investigate a recent report that Justice Clarence Thomas has accepted and failed to disclose 20 years’ worth of lavish gifts and luxury travel from a billionaire GOP megadonor.
In a letter sent Monday, Committee Chair Dick Durbin and the 10 other Democrats on the panel urged Roberts to look into the ProPublica article published last Thursday. The article described conduct by Thomas that the Democrats said was “plainly inconsistent with the ethical standards the American people expect of any person in a position of public trust.”
The Democrats also said that the Senate Judiciary Committee had a role to play in making sure the nation’s highest court did not have the federal judiciary’s lowest ethical standards. The panel said it plans to hold a hearing on the “need to restore public confidence in the Supreme Court.”
The ProPublica report revealed that GOP donor Harlan Crow had funded lavish trips for Thomas for years. The article also said that Thomas had failed to disclose the gifts and trips as required by law.
The Senate Judiciary Committee’s call for an investigation into Thomas’s conduct is the latest development in a long-running controversy surrounding the Supreme Court’s ethics standards. The panel’s hearing is expected to take place in the near future.
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