Justice Clarence Thomas failed to disclose two additional trips from a billionaire patron than have previously come to light, Senate Democrats revealed on Saturday after conducting a 20-month investigation into ethics practices at the Supreme Court.
The findings were part of a 93-page report released by Democratic staff members of the Judiciary Committee along with about 800 pages of documents. It said the two trips, both of which had been previously unknown to the public, took place in 2021 and were provided by Harlan Crow, a real estate magnate in Texas and a frequent patron of Justice Thomas’s.
One trip took place that July by private jet from Nebraska to Saranac, N.Y., where Justice Thomas stayed at Mr. Crow’s upstate retreat for five days. The other came in October, when Mr. Crow flew Justice Thomas round trip from the District of Columbia to New Jersey for the dedication of a statue, including hosting him overnight in New York on his yacht.
The disclosures were one of the few new revelations in a report that otherwise largely summarized information about largess accepted by justices — and failures to disclose it — that had already become public. Justice Thomas had not disclosed the trips, even after refiling some of his past financial forms, and the committee learned about them through a subpoena to Mr. Crow, the report said.
The committee also issued a subpoena to Leonard Leo, a conservative power broker who had helped organize a fishing trip to a remote part of Alaska in 2008 for Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., with private jet travel provided by a billionaire hedge fund manager. Justice Alito had not disclosed that trip — and later said he was not required to by the rules as they then existed.
