Clarence Thomas delays filing Supreme Court disclosure amid scrutiny over gifts from GOP donor
Washington — Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas received more time to submit a financial disclosure report for 2022, as he faces scrutiny for the gifts, luxury travel and other financial dealings with Republican megadonor Harlan Crow.
The justices' annual financial disclosure reports were made public Wednesday, but a spokesperson for the Administrative Office for the U.S. Courts confirmed to CBS News that Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito requested and were granted 90-day extensions to submit their filings.
Alito has asked for more time in past years to file his annual financial disclosures.
The release of this year's forms was highly anticipated, since the Supreme Court, and Thomas specifically, has come under scrutiny from congressional Democrats over ethical practices. The renewed focus on the ethical standards abided by the justices followed a string of reports from the news outlet ProPublica detailing Thomas' relationship with Crow, a Texas real estate developer.
The news organization revealed that in the course of their 25-year friendship, Thomas has taken trips aboard Crow's private plane and yacht to far-flung spots, and vacationed at Crow's resort in the Adirondacks. Crow, according to ProPublica's findings, also purchased three properties in Georgia belonging to Thomas and his family in a deal worth $100,000, and paid two years of tuition at a pair of boarding schools for Thomas' grandnephew.
The arrangements were not listed in Thomas' previous financial disclosures. The justice, who has served on the Supreme Court for 30 years, confirmed in an April statement that he and his wife have joined the Crows "on a number of family trips," but did not believe he was required to report the travel accommodations and vacations on disclosure forms.
Thomas pledged to comply with new guidelines adopted in March by the Judicial Conference, the body that sets policy for the federal judiciary, clarifying what constitutes as "personal hospitality."
Travel, clothes and flowers from Oprah: What's in the other justices' disclosures
Amid the revelations in the 2022 reports from the other seven justices are details about the positions they held outside the Supreme Court, investments, gifts they received, income and reimbursements for transportation, lodging, food and entertainment.
Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, for example, each held teaching positions last year. Barrett was an adjunct professor at University of Notre Dame Law School, where she worked before her appointment to the federal bench, while Kavanaugh and Gorush taught at George Mason University.
Kavanaugh agreed to teach at Notre Dame in 2023, he reported. He also noted his coaching position for a seventh and eighth grade girl's basketball team.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson held several roles outside the Supreme Court in 2022. She was an overseer at Harvard University, which led Jackson to recuse herself from a closely watched dispute over the school's race-conscious admissions policies. She also served as a council member of the American Law Institute, as well as on the boards at Georgetown Day School and the Historical Society of the District of Columbia Circuit.
Jackson was the only justice to report receiving gifts above the $415 reporting threshold in 2022, which included a painting valued at $580, a congratulatory floral arrangement from Oprah Winfrey worth $1,200, and a designer dress and jacket worn during a photo shoot for Vogue magazine, valued at $6,580.
Several of the justices also disclosed trips taken domestically and abroad, and the source of the trips. Kavanaugh traveled to Rome with Notre Dame's Kellogg Institute For International Studies in September. Gorsuch visited Padua, Italy, with George Mason University's National Security Institute last July. Barrett traveled to Rome; Big Sky, Montana; and Simi Valley, California, for speeches. Justice Elena Kagan disclosed six trips throughout 2022 for speeches in cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, and Toronto, and Justice Sotomayor participated in a conference hosted by New York University in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Sotomayor received nearly $150,000 in book royalties from Penguin Random House, as $2,225 for theater adaptation rights to her children's book, "Just Ask!" Gorsuch, meanwhile, received $277 in royalty income from Princeton University Press, which published his book on assisted suicide and euthanasia in 2009.
Kagan revealed that she received rental income from a parking space in a Washington, D.C., building, while Chief Justice John Roberts rents out homes in Ireland and Maine.
