What Next - Clarence Thomas’s Friends in High Places
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3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 10 April 2023
⏱️ 26 minutes
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Summary
A ProPublica investigation revealed that Justice Clarence Thomas has been gifted luxury vacations by Republican donor and billionaire Harlan Crow. For over two decades, Justice Thomas has taken private jets, gone on yachts and stayed at private resorts alongside powerful Republican donors, all funded by Crow. For the most part, Justice Thomas did not disclose these vacations.
The investigation raises questions on the legality of these types of gifts, as well as the lack of oversight and ethics standards for the Supreme Court. Did these vacations break the law? To what extent could Justice Thomas’s court rulings have been influenced by Crow and other people on these trips? And even if some of these gifts may not have been illegal, why doesn’t the Supreme Court have more oversight and ethical guidelines to prevent potential conflicts of interest?
Guest: Justin Elliot, reporter at ProPublica.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Last Thursday, we learned from pro-publica reporter Justin Elliott and his co-authors that |
| 0:11.9 | Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has expensive taste. |
| 0:17.0 | For example, in 2019, just after Thomas finished his responsibilities with the Court in Washington, |
| 0:24.1 | he hopped on board a very special private jet. |
| 0:27.5 | It's a Bombardier Global 5,000, and if you were to go on the open market to charter |
| 0:33.5 | one of these for a trip, we were told that you'd be paying easily 10 to $15,000 per flight |
| 0:40.2 | hour. |
| 0:41.2 | The destination, Indonesia. |
| 0:49.6 | That's a flight that takes 25, 30 hours at least. |
| 0:52.5 | So if you start just doing the arithmetic on the flight alone, it's an extraordinary amount |
| 0:56.7 | of money. |
| 0:58.4 | But the decadence was only beginning. |
| 1:00.6 | Thomas then joined some very wealthy friends on a 162-foot super yacht called the Mikaela |
| 1:07.4 | Rose. |
| 1:08.4 | Of course, it was decked out with all the amenities. |
| 1:12.0 | It has a whole staff of chefs and people that clean and serve you and drive you around |
| 1:17.9 | on little motorboats, jet skis, it has a giant rubber duck that they sort of play with. |
| 1:24.5 | And so, yeah, this is the type of luxury that is only available to the .01 percent. |
| 1:34.5 | A trip like this is estimated to cost around $500,000. |
| 1:39.4 | And this wasn't the only luxury trip Thomas has been on. |
| 1:43.0 | He's taken numerous jobs on private jets. |
| 1:46.3 | He's gone to an all-male retreat in California. |
... |
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