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John,

Five years ago, Justice Thomas was just arriving off the private jet paid for by Harlan Crow in California for the two-week all male Bohemian Grove party. And that trip came right on the heels of his trip yachting around Indonesia, also paid for by Crow.

If past summer recesses are any indication, Justice Clarence Thomas is in the middle of a summer full of travel on private jets paid for by his millionaire and billionaire friends. To make matters worse – he never disclosed any of this until this year. That’s much too late, and it’s illegal.

Here’s a timeline of Justice Thomas’s wild summer of 2019:

• June 27, 2019: Supreme Court releases final decisions of 2019.
• June 29, 2019: Justice Thomas and his wife Ginni fly on a private jet paid for by Harlan Crow to Indonesia.
• July 1, 2019: The Thomases go on an eight-day excursion around Indonesia on Crow’s yacht along with Crow and Crow’s wife.
• July 9, 2019: Crow reports private jet travel for Thomas from Indonesia back to DC. The private jet and yachting portions of this trip alone would have cost Thomas roughly $500,000 – nearly double his yearly Supreme Court salary!
• July 12, 2019: Thomas reports hotel stay paid for by Crow in Bali (this timeline doesn’t line up and merits investigation).
• July 18, 2019: Thomas flies on a private jet to Santa Rosa, California paid for by Crow.
• July 18, 2019: From July 18-21, Thomas attends Bohemian Grove, an exclusive all-male summit paid for by Crow. This is a “two-week party held in the Sonoma County redwoods every July” where “wine, sometimes at $500 a bottle, flows freely, and late at night, members consume clam chowder and chili by the gallon.”
• July 21, 2019: Thomas flies on a private jet back to Washington, DC paid for by Crow. August 31, 2019: Over Labor Day weekend, Thomas flies on a private jet to Nebraska paid for by David Sokol.
• August 31, 2019: The Thomases attend the home opener football game at University of Nebraska paid for by Sokol, along with Mark Paoletta. Sokol “arranged for the group to attend the football and volleyball games with all-access passes. Thomas met with the football team the day before the game. The group walked out of the tunnel before kickoff.”
• September 1, 2019: The Thomases flew with Sokol on a private jet to Sokol’s Paintbrush Ranch outside Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where they “fished, rafted on the Snake River and sat by a campfire overlooking the Teton Range with the other couples. At one point, the Paolettas serenaded the justice with a song they wrote about him.”

John, it took five years for Thomas to finally amend his financial disclosure reports to include certain “food and lodging” portions of his trips to Bali and Bohemian Grove – and only after they were exposed by ProPublica, last year.

Thomas still has yet to disclose the private jet travel or yachting excursions he took on those trips or any part of his trips to Nebraska and Wyoming. And now, thanks to a letter sent by two senators who are demanding an investigation into Thomas, we know that he also traveled to Russia in 2003—also paid for by Crow.

We have a lot of questions about that, but one thing that is clear is that we can’t trust Clarence Thomas’s financial disclosures, and that he must be investigated.

Last year, CREW filed a civil and criminal complaint against Justice Thomas when his failure to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts from and property sales to Crow came to light. Today, that investigation is all the more urgent.

Thanks,

CREW HQ