Clarence Thomas' defense of receiving billionaire's gifts collapses under scrutiny: fact checker

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' attempt to brush aside concerns that he has been influenced for decades by a billionaire who has lavished gifts and expensive getaways on himself and his wife didn't pass the smell test of the Washington Post's fact checker.

In his column, the Post's Glenn Kessler suggested the rare statement from Thomas to his critics not only doesn't fully address the issues being scrutinized but instead creates more questions that need investigating.

Breaking the jurist's statement down, Kessler, focused on Thomas asserting that he was advised years ago he was given the okay to not report the gifts from conservative billionaire Harlan Crow.

According to Thomas, "Early in my tenure at the court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the court, was not reportable.”

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As Kessler wrote, "This statement is vague, not disclosing when he sought this guidance (such as whether it was before or after he became friends with Crow) and who outside the Supreme Court but 'in the judiciary' might have offered this guidance."

As for Thomas's dismissive claim, "As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips during the more than quarter century we have known them,” Kessler pointed out the elephant in the room that was included in ProPublica's report that set off the firestorm.

About those "family trips," the Post report states, "The ProPublica article documented some of these trips, including a nine-day journey in Indonesia on a private plane and superyacht that would have cost Thomas more than $500,000 if he had funded it himself. As a Supreme Court justice Thomas earns $285,000 a year. Notably, Thomas’s statement does not address his use of Crow’s private plane for other reasons."

Kessler went on to note that Thomas made a "debatable' claim when he wrote, "I have endeavored to follow that counsel throughout my tenure, and have always sought to comply with the disclosure guidelines.”

"In 2004, the Los Angeles Times disclosed that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had accepted from Crow private plane trips and expensive gifts, such as a Bible that once belonged to abolitionist Frederick Douglass and a bust of Abraham Lincoln," he wrote before adding, "Thomas refused to comment in 2004, but the Times report appears to have had an impact: Thomas stopped disclosing that he had accepted free plane trips from Crow. So it’s unclear how Thomas can say in recent years he relied on the same guidance he had received 'early in my tenure,'" which began on the Supreme Court 32 years ago.

You can read his whole analysis here.