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The Real Reason Why Clarence Thomas Started Accepting Gifts From Billionaires

2023-12-18
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Clarence Thomas was in so much debt two decades ago that he tried to get Supreme Court justice salaries raised. Within months, Republican billionaires began giving him extravagant gifts. Thomas spoke at a conservative conference in January 2000, and in what we now know to be classic Thomas style, he did not report that trip on his financial disclosure forms.

On the way home, he sat next to Republican Representative Cliff Stearns. During the flight, Thomas complained bitterly that his salary—then $173,600—was insufficient. He even hinted that multiple justices could resign in the next year if they weren’t given a pay raise.
Republicans wanted to make sure that Thomas and his fellow staunch conservative Antonin Scalia did not leave the bench. Ultimately, the attempts to give justices more money failed. But soon after, a group of Republican billionaire megadonors began lavishing Thomas and his family with a steady stream of gifts.

One of those generous souls is billionaire Harlan Crow, who has repeatedly lavished Thomas with expensive gifts. These include island-hopping yacht vacations, private school tuition for his nephew, and buying and renovating a Thomas family property, where his mother still lives.

When he was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1991, Thomas still had student loans from law school. But during the early 1990s, he made at least two big purchases: a Corvette and a house in Virginia with five acres of land. Thomas and his wife bought the house for $522,000 in 1992. They were able to pay $8,000 out of pocket and had to borrow the rest. The month before Thomas complained about his salary to Stearns, he had borrowed $267,000 from a friend to buy a luxury R.V.
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Article URL : https://newrepublic.com/post/177629/real-reason-clarence-thomas-started-accepting-gifts-billionaires