Clarence Thomas Had a Child in Private School. Harlan Crow Paid the Tuition. (May 2023)
www.propublica.org

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Update, May 4, 2023: This story has been updated to reflect that Mark Paoletta, a longtime friend of Clarence Thomas who has also served as Ginni Thomas' lawyer, acknowledged Harlan Crow's tuition payments.

In 2008, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas decided to send his teenage grandnephew to Hidden Lake Academy, a private boarding school in the foothills of northern Georgia. The boy, Mark Martin, was far from home. For the previous decade, he had lived with the justice and his wife in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Thomas had taken legal custody of Martin when he was 6 years old and had recently told an interviewer he was "raising him as a son."

Tuition at the boarding school ran more than $6,000 a month. But Thomas did not cover the bill. A bank statement for the school from July 2009, buried in unrelated court filings, shows the source of Martin's tuition payment for that month: the company of billionaire real estate magnate Harlan Crow. ...

Thomas acknowledges more travel paid for by Harlan Crow. Colleagues report six-figure book payments
apnews.com

OK, at this point I have to ask...

Mr Crow looks to be quite wealthy. Why does he seem to have a need to purchase curry favor with a Justice?

How Harlan Crow Slashed his Tax Bill by Taking Clarence Thomas on Superyacht Cruises (July 2023)
www.propublica.org

... For months, Harlan Crow and members of Congress have been engaged in a fight over whether the billionaire needs to divulge details about his gifts to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, including globe-trotting trips aboard his 162-foot yacht, the Michaela Rose.

Crow's lawyer argues that Congress has no authority to probe the GOP donor's generosity and that doing so violates a constitutional separation of powers between Congress and the Supreme Court.

Members of Congress say there are federal tax laws underlying their interest and a known propensity by the ultrarich to use their yachts to skirt those laws.

Tax data obtained by ProPublica provides a glimpse of what congressional investigators would find if Crow were to open his books to them. Crow's voyages with Thomas, the data shows, contributed to a nice side benefit: They helped reduce Crow's tax bill.

The rich, as we've reported, often deduct millions of dollars from their taxes related to buying and operating their jets and yachts. Crow followed that formula through a company that purported to charter his superyacht. But a closer examination of how Crow used the yacht raises questions about his compliance with the tax code, experts said. Despite Crow's representations to the IRS, ProPublica reporters could find no evidence that his yacht company was actually a profit-seeking business, as the law requires. ...

OK, that may explain the process, but not the "why" ...

Clarence Thomas's Billionaire Friend Did Have Business Before the Supreme Court (April 2023)
www.bnnbloomberg.ca

... Justice Clarence Thomas said he was advised he didn't have to disclose private jet flights and luxury vacations paid for by billionaire Harlan Crow because, although a close friend, Crow "did not have business before the court."

But in at least one case, Crow did.

Bloomberg reviewed dozens of state and federal cases involving companies that the Crow family has owned or had a financial stake in since Thomas' 1991 confirmation. Nearly all of these disputes played out at the trial and appellate level and didn't reach the Supreme Court.

In January 2005, though, the court declined to hear an appeal from an architecture firm that wanted more than $25 million from Trammell Crow Residential Co. for allegedly misusing copyrighted building designs. When the court issued a one-sentence order denying the petition, there were no noted recusals " indicating that Thomas participated " and no noted dissents.

The Crow family had a non-controlling interest in the company at the time, according to a statement to Bloomberg from Harlan Crow's office. Thomas had already reported a 1997 private flight and high-dollar gifts from Crow, both documented in a December 2004 report from the Los Angeles Times. The justice had described Crow and his wife Kathy as "personal friends." ...

Given Crow's status as "a close friend and a generous benefactor," Thomas should have recused himself from cases where he knew or should have known that Crow had a direct financial interest, Hellman said. But he said it seemed unlikely that the justice would have been on notice or had reason to investigate the architecture firm's petition at the time, he said.

Close friendships can warrant recusals, Hellman said. He said that the key question is: "Would a reasonable person, knowing all of the circumstances, question the judge's impartiality?"

Stephen Gillers, a judicial ethics expert at New York University School of Law, said that given the close relationship between the Thomases and the Crows over 25 years and the many commercial interests of Crow and his companies, Thomas should have been "hypervigilant to the prospect of a Crow interest showing up on the Court's docket." ...

28 U.S. Code 144 - Bias or prejudice of judge
www.law.cornell.edu

... Whenever a party to any proceeding in a district court makes and files a timely and sufficient affidavit that the judge before whom the matter is pending has a personal bias or prejudice either against him or in favor of any adverse party, such judge shall proceed no further therein, but another judge shall be assigned to hear such proceeding. ...

So, it really appears that Chief Justice of the US Roberts is shirking his responsibility, or highlighting his inability, to protect the, I'll say, gravitas of the Supreme Court.

So, how can we get the Supreme Court back to being responsible to the democratic Republic is should serve?