For many years, a loophole that allowed Supreme Court justices to avoid disclosing certain gifts — including travel — funded by their friends was apparently big enough to fly a private jet through.
The federal judiciary just last month announced in a letter to lawmakers that it had tightened its rules for what judges and justices need to include in annual financial disclosure statements.
That tweak was made just weeks before a ProPublica article published Thursday detailed extravagant trips that conservative Justice Clarence Thomas allegedly took that were funded by conservative billionaire and Republican donor Harlan Crow.
Thomas did not disclose these trips — allegedly including travel in Crow's private jet and visits to a private resort in upstate New York — on his annual financial disclosure statements. Under the rules that existed until recently, he may not have been required to.
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"In my view, before the recent amendments, the situation was sufficiently vague to give Thomas a basis to claim that reporting was not required," said Stephen Gillers, an expert on judicial ethics at New York University School of Law. "I think that such an interpretation would be a stretch ... but the interpretation is plausible."
The "personal hospitality" exemption means judges and justices don’t have to disclose certain gifts, including accommodations and food, when the person involved is a friend. The new interpretation made it clear that travel by private jet and stays at resort-type facilities owned by private entities have to be disclosed. That would appear to cover trips ProPublica said Thomas has taken to the private resort Crow owns in upstate New York, as well as travel on the donor's jet. NBC News was not immediately able to confirm the details of ProPublica's reporting.
Clarence Thomas
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