‘EXTRAORDINARY’

Clarence Thomas Attended at Least Two Koch Donor Summits: Report

A retired federal judge told ProPublica the revelation “takes my breath away.”

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas reportedly attended at least two donor summits hosted by the secretive Koch network as part of a long and little-known personal relationship with the right-wing billionaire brothers. ProPublica reported that Thomas’ attendance at the summits—including one in Palm Springs in 2018, when the justice arrived in a Gulfstream G200 jet—puts him in the “extraordinary position” of acting as a “fundraising draw” for a group that has regularly brought cases before the nation’s highest court. The investigative news nonprofit reported previously on Thomas accepting undisclosed luxury travel from real estate billionaire Harlan Crow and other wealthy benefactors. It also reported that Crow had bought Thomas’ mother’s house and paid school tuition for a child Thomas was raising as his son. ProPublica notes that federal judiciary rules prohibit judges from political activity and fundraising, but those rules do not apply to Supreme Court justices. “I can’t imagine—it takes my breath away, frankly—that he would go to a Koch network event for donors,” retired federal judge John E. Jones III told ProPublica. “What you’re seeing is a slow creep toward unethical behavior. Do it if you can get away with it.”