If anyone should understand the distinction between what’s legal and what’s ethical, it should be a U.S. Supreme Court justice.
Clarence Thomas, however, is basing his entire defense for not reporting the lavish vacations with which he and his wife have been gifted on the legality: He was under no legal obligation to report them under the looser disclosure requirements that were in effect for the federal judiciary at the time all of these trips were taken.
Even if that defense is technically correct, it does not get Thomas completely off the hook. Those in public office — and particularly those who serve on the bench — have an ethical duty to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. The judicial code for federal judges, from which ironically the Supreme Court considers itself exempt, demands just that. The latest controversy involving Thomas is another example of how the court’s image suffers by holding itself to a different — and lower — standard than those over whom it lords.
Thomas has not disputed the facts reported by ProPublica, the nonprofit investigative journalism organization. It found that for more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips from billionaire Harlan Crow, a major donor to Republican candidates and causes. Thomas and his wife have traveled on Crow’s yacht and private jet as well as stayed at his private resort in New York’s Adirondack Mountains. One trip to Indonesia with Crow and others could have cost more than $500,000 had Thomas chartered the plane and yacht himself, according to ProPublica.
On many of these trips, Thomas has rubbed shoulders with other conservatives like Crow, who, though they may not have had cases directly before the Supreme Court, had more than a passing interest in many of its decisions.
These lavish excursions also belie the “everyman” image that Thomas has portrayed of himself, saying in a recent interview, “I prefer the RV parks. I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that.” He might prefer RVs, but he obviously is not averse to luxury travel.
What Thomas should know is that accepting freebies such as this, even if legal, causes the public to lose faith in his impartiality, and, by extension, the impartiality of the rest of the court. He should have not accepted the trips, or at a minimum fully disclosed them and their value.
It is stunning that a jurist who should be lecturing others about ethics is the one who is having to be schooled about them.
