Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas Alex Wong-Getty Images
Senate Democrats said Monday they plan to subpoena Republican megadonor Harlan Crow and a conservative activist. Leonard Leo for more information on their role in the organization and payment luxury travel for Supreme Court judges.
The announcement by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee comes as the court has been pressured to adopt an ethics code, a move that has been publicly approved by three of the nine judges.
The committee could act as soon as next week to authorize Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the chairman of the panel, to issue subpoenas to Crow, Leo and another wealthy donor, Robin Arkley II.
Crow has been identified as a benefactor of Justice Clarence Thomas for more than two decades, paying for almost annual vacations, buying from Thomas and others. Georgia’s house in which the mother of justice still lives and helps pay private school for a relative.
Leo, a Federalist Society executive who worked with former President Donald Trump to move the court and the rest of the federal judiciary to the right, and Arkley helped organize and pay for a private jet trip to alaska for Justice Samuel Alito in 2008.
Arkley and Leo have refused to cooperate with the committee’s investigation of the largely undisclosed private travel of the justices, the committee said.
Crow “offered to produce some limited information that is not quite what the Committee needs and to whom it is entitled,” Durbin and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, DR.I., said in a joint statement.
In a statement after Durbin’s announcement, Crow’s office called the subpoena politically motivated and said Crow had offered information to the committee.
“It is clear that this is nothing more than a stunt intended to undermine a sitting Supreme Court judge for ideological and political purposes,” the statement said.
Leo made a similar objection. “I will not bow to the vile and disgusting liberal McCarthyism that seeks to destroy the Supreme Court simply because it follows the Constitution rather than its political agenda,” Leo said in a statement.
In July, the judicial board approved legislation which forces justices to adhere to stronger ethical standards. The bill establishes ethical rules for the board and a process to enforce them, including new standards for transparency around refusals, gifts and potential conflicts of interest.
The bill has little chance of passing in the closely divided Senate. Republicans rallied against it, saying it could “destroy” the court.
In addition to the Judiciary Committee, Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee released the results of their separate investigation Loan $267,000 which allowed Thomas to buy a luxury, 40-foot motorcoach in 1999. The committee found that the loan, made by longtime friend Anthony Welters, appears to have been largely, if not totally forgiven, after Thomas made interest payments, only, more than nine years. .
