Clarence Thomas admits billionaire paid for private club membership and luxury Bali trips

A Texas billionaire, known to have cozy relationships with high-profile conservatives, footed the bill for two 2019 trips to Bali and membership to a private California club for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, according to a report published Friday.

The trips were disclosed for the first time Friday in required annual financial disclosures for 2023, obtained by The Washington Post. A copy of the records wasn't immediately available on the online Federal Judicial Financial Disclosure Reports database.

Billionaire conservative Harlan Crow — a prominent American businessman and real estate developer, who serves as the chairman and former CEO of Crow Holdings — paid for Thomas's trips, the Post reported. Thomas's 2023 disclosure form included food and lodging for trips to Indonesia and Bohemian Grove club in California, according to the report. Both were included in a ProPublica investigation last year.

Thomas's disclosure comes after investigations found he failed for years to disclose that Crow paid for his ritzy vacations and private jet trips.

In Thomas' 2022 financial disclosure report, which covered that entire year, Thomas revealed that Crow paid for private flights on two separate occasions where he served as a keynote speaker at an American Enterprise Institute conference. Additionally, Thomas revealed that Crow paid for Thomas's transportation, meals, and lodging while Thomas was a guest of Crow's from July 7-13, 2022, in Keese Mill, New York.

Thomas has justified his reliance on Crow to fund his travel on the grounds that the 2022 leak of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade created security risks for him.

The report Friday comes after a separate report this week found Supreme Court Justices have received about $4.7 million in gifts over the past two decades — more than $4 million of which was pocketed by Thomas alone, newly revealed data showed.

Outrage erupted Thursday over the new "staggering tally" of Supreme Court gifts which was collected by the nonprofit accountability group Fix the Court.

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“Supreme Court justices should not be accepting gifts, let alone the hundreds of freebies worth millions of dollars they’ve received over the years,” Fix the Court’s Gabe Roth said in a public statement. “The ethics crisis at the Court won’t begin to abate until justices adopt stricter gift acceptance rules.”

The latest financial disclosures also showed justices Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and Ketanji Brown Jackson all received book payments of more than $100,000, the Post reported. Additionally, Jackson received four tickets to a Beyoncé concert worth about $4,000, and several justices made money from teaching at law schools.