Two Democratic U.S. senators announced Tuesday that they are seeking a criminal investigation of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas over gifts of travel, a loan for a recreational vehicle and other benefits he received from wealthy benefactors.
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Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Ron Wyden (D.-Ore.) said they sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland last week requesting he appoint a special counsel to probe whether Thomas violated ethics, false statement and tax laws.
The action marks a significant escalation in efforts by Democratic senators to address ethics controversies related to Thomas and the court in recent years. Whitehouse’s staff said it was likely the first time anyone had requested a special counsel investigate a Supreme Court justice. Whitehouse sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, while Wyden chairs the Senate Finance Committee.
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Jeremy Fogel, a former federal judge and executive director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute, said the Justice Department has the legal authority to appoint a special counsel to investigate Thomas, but whether it would is another matter. “Inevitably it would be seen as political retribution for rulings the justices made that they don’t like,” he said. “I just don’t know how you get Follow Politics
The Justice Department declined to comment on the request.
Special counsels are generally appointed when the attorney general wants to assure the public that a sensitive investigation will be conducted fairly and free from political considerations; Garland has appointed three special counsels during his tenure, to oversee investigations involving former president Donald Trump, President Biden and the president’s son, Hunter Biden.
“We do not make this request lightly,” Whitehouse and Wyden said in a statement. “The evidence assembled thus far plainly suggests that Justice Thomas has committed numerous willful violations of federal ethics and false-statement laws and raises significant questions about whether he and his wealthy benefactors have complied with their federal tax obligations.”
Thomas and his attorney, Elliot S. Berke, did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but Berke has said previously that Thomas tried to comply with financial disclosures of gifts and travel as they existed at the time.
“Justice Thomas has always strived for full transparency and adherence to the law, including with respect to what personal travel needed to be reported,” Berke said in a statement last year. He described any failures to disclose travel as “strictly inadvertent.”
Whitehouse and Wyden said they wanted a special counsel to examine a $267,000 loan Thomas used to purchase a luxury motor coach in 1999, adding that they have not received adequate answers from Thomas about how he handled the matter. An investigation by the Senate Finance Committee concluded a substantial portion of the loan from Thomas’s friend and businessman, Anthony Welters, was forgiven in 2008. The committee found Thomas failed to report the loan on his financial disclosure forms, raising questions about whether he reported it as income on his taxes as required by law.
Thomas has not previously commented publicly on the loan, but Welters told The Washington Post last year that he believed Thomas had “satisfied the loan.”
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Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Ron Wyden (D.-Ore.) said they sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland last week requesting he appoint a special counsel to probe whether Thomas violated ethics, false statement and tax laws.
The action marks a significant escalation in efforts by Democratic senators to address ethics controversies related to Thomas and the court in recent years. Whitehouse’s staff said it was likely the first time anyone had requested a special counsel investigate a Supreme Court justice. Whitehouse sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, while Wyden chairs the Senate Finance Committee.
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Jeremy Fogel, a former federal judge and executive director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute, said the Justice Department has the legal authority to appoint a special counsel to investigate Thomas, but whether it would is another matter. “Inevitably it would be seen as political retribution for rulings the justices made that they don’t like,” he said. “I just don’t know how you get Follow Politics
The Justice Department declined to comment on the request.
Special counsels are generally appointed when the attorney general wants to assure the public that a sensitive investigation will be conducted fairly and free from political considerations; Garland has appointed three special counsels during his tenure, to oversee investigations involving former president Donald Trump, President Biden and the president’s son, Hunter Biden.
“We do not make this request lightly,” Whitehouse and Wyden said in a statement. “The evidence assembled thus far plainly suggests that Justice Thomas has committed numerous willful violations of federal ethics and false-statement laws and raises significant questions about whether he and his wealthy benefactors have complied with their federal tax obligations.”
Thomas and his attorney, Elliot S. Berke, did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but Berke has said previously that Thomas tried to comply with financial disclosures of gifts and travel as they existed at the time.
“Justice Thomas has always strived for full transparency and adherence to the law, including with respect to what personal travel needed to be reported,” Berke said in a statement last year. He described any failures to disclose travel as “strictly inadvertent.”
Whitehouse and Wyden said they wanted a special counsel to examine a $267,000 loan Thomas used to purchase a luxury motor coach in 1999, adding that they have not received adequate answers from Thomas about how he handled the matter. An investigation by the Senate Finance Committee concluded a substantial portion of the loan from Thomas’s friend and businessman, Anthony Welters, was forgiven in 2008. The committee found Thomas failed to report the loan on his financial disclosure forms, raising questions about whether he reported it as income on his taxes as required by law.
Thomas has not previously commented publicly on the loan, but Welters told The Washington Post last year that he believed Thomas had “satisfied the loan.”
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