A group of 16 congressional Democrats has sent a request to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to launch a probe into the luxury trips that Justice Clarence Thomas received as undisclosed gifts from a major Republican donor for the past two decades.
In a letter sent on Friday, the 8 senators and 8 representatives requested for an investigation to be launched into the possibly unethical and “potentially unlawful” conduct of Thomas over the past two decades. In the letter, the Democrats also note that so far the Supreme Court has not acknowledged the allegations at all.
As they write in the letter to Roberts, it “is your duty as Chief Justice ‘to safeguard public faith in the judiciary,’” and in order to fill those duties he needs to swiftly launch a probe to look into these allegations.
On Thursday, ProPublica was the first to put out a report detailing the luxury gifted trips that Thomas had benefited from billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow. This included trips on Crow’s yacht, flights using his private jet, and vacations on Crow’s private resort. Crow is a Dallas-based real estate developer and major Republican donor.
According to the outlet’s original report the amount of the gifts amounted to more than $500,000, but Thomas never disclosed any of these gifts, despite the multiple years of receiving them. Thomas has claimed that he had been “advised” that it was not necessary for him to disclose these trips.
