Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas arrives for the swearing in ceremony of Judge Neil Gorsuch as an Associate Supreme Court Justice within the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, April 10, 2017.
Joshua Roberts | Reuters
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas reported on financial disclosure forms that his family has earned 1000’s of dollars in rental income from a Nebraska real estate firm that has been shuttered since 2006, in keeping with a report by the Washington Post Sunday.
Thomas has reported income from a firm called Ginger, Ltd., Partnership during the last twenty years, but in 2006 it was shut down and replaced by a recent firm, the report said. The brand new firm, Ginger Holdings, LLC, is similarly named, but there isn’t any mention of it in Thomas’ records.
In recent times, Thomas reportedly continued to reveal between $50,000 and $100,000 in income from the old firm annually.
Even when the misstatement might be reduced to a paperwork error, it marks the most recent query across the justice’s financial practices after a recent ProPublica report revealed Thomas has accepted secret luxury trips from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow for greater than twenty years in apparent violation of a financial disclosure law.
Thomas, the 74-year-old conservative associate justice who has served on the nation’s highest court since 1991, has not reported the trips on his financial disclosures as required by law, the nonprofit newsroom reported. ProPublica later reported that Crow bought property from Thomas as well, which the justice also didn’t disclose.
The investigation offers more fuel for Thomas’ critics, who say his refusal to recuse himself from cases touching on issues related to his wife’s political work in conservative circles — including her involvement in schemes to overturn the 2020 election — poses a conflict of interest.
The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Democratic majority on Monday called for an investigation into Thomas’ behavior. Chief Justice John Roberts should “immediately open” a probe into “how such conduct could happen” on his watch, read a letter from Chairman Dick Durbin of Illinois and the Senate Judiciary panel’s 10 other Democratic members.
The committee announced within the letter that it could hold a hearing “in the approaching days” on “the necessity to restore confidence within the Supreme Court’s ethical standards.”
— CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger contributed to this report.
