Two Senate Democrats are calling on Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel to investigate conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for possible violations of ethics and tax laws.
In a letter sent to Mr. Garland, Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Ron Wyden of Oregon cited public reporting and Senate investigations that have uncovered “evidence of repeated and willful omissions of gifts and income” from the justice’s financial disclosures, including from Republican donor Harlan Crow and others.
Last year, a series of articles published by ProPublica detailed Justice Thomas’ failure to disclose gifts and trips. In the letter, the lawmakers say the undisclosed gifts and income could be worth millions of dollars.
“The breadth of the omissions uncovered to date, and the serious possibility of additional tax fraud and false statement violations by Justice Thomas and his associates, warrant the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate this misconduct,” the lawmakers wrote.
They said senators do not have the power to prosecute, and the high court doesn’t have its own “fact-finding function, making the executive role all the more important.”
The lawmakers also mentioned an investigation by the Senate Finance and Judiciary committees into a $267,230 loan connected to Justice Thomas for the purchase of a vehicle for which he only made interest payments. The committees found that in 2008, the loan provider stopped collecting payments, suggesting it was forgiven, but that information wasn’t listed on Justice Thomas’ disclosure report that year.
Lawyers for Justice Thomas and his wife, Virginia, said at the time of the committees’ investigation in 2023 that the couple had satisfied the terms of agreement on the loan.
Still, the lawmakers questioned why the apparently forgiven loan wasn’t disclosed.
“Justice Thomas failed to clarify whether or why he failed to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in forgiven debt on his federal income tax returns and pay the income taxes owed. We submit that the facts we have developed, combined with strategically evasive answers, creates predication for further investigation by relevant authorities,” the letter said.
Mr. Whitehouse and Mr. Wyden said they “do not make this request lightly.”
“The evidence assembled thus far plainly suggests that Justice Thomas has committed numerous willful violations of federal ethics and false-statement laws and raises significant questions about whether he and his wealthy benefactors have complied with their federal tax obligations,” they wrote. “Presented with opportunities to resolve questions about his conduct, Justice Thomas has maintained a suspicious silence.”
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said the Supreme Court “is way off the deep end, in so many different ways,” when asked about the letter by reporters during his weekly press conference Tuesday.
He said he was “looking carefully” at the different avenues of trying to “clean up the court.”
The Justice Department declined to comment. The Washington Times has reached out to the Supreme Court.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.
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