John, I want you to see this news about the Supreme Court:

The U.S. Judicial Conference's Committee on Financial Disclosure—which sets rules followed by the nine justices and other federal judges—issued this new amendment to allow Supreme Court justices and federal judges on lower courts to *not* publicly disclose when they are hosted on vacation at a personal residence owned by a business entity.

This new policy not only undermines judicial transparency and accountability, but also does not even comport with the language of the governing statute, which expressly limits the scope of the personal hospitality exemption in the disclosure rules to hospitality received from an “individual.”

John, they might as well call this new rule the “Clarence Thomas exemption.”

Justice Clarence Thomas has repeatedly refused to disclose luxury trips and vacations paid for by his millionaire and billionaire friends like Harlan Crow. That’s an apparent violation of the law, and we’ve called twice now for the Department of Justice to criminally investigate.

The question of whether lodging at a company-owned residence must be disclosed has direct bearing on whether Justice  Thomas needs to disclose his stays at Harlan Crow’s Camp Topridge.

To be honest, the last thing we need is more disclosure loopholes. We need accountability.

For Supreme Court justices, avoiding even the appearance of bias is crucial—and required under federal law and the Court’s ethics code. And when justices fall short of their ethics obligations, they undermine the legitimacy of the Supreme Court.

For years, CREW has been fighting for an enforceable, binding Code of Conduct for Supreme Court justices. We’ve testified before Congress about it, submitted testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee and sent letters to the Chief Justice, all in an attempt to bring ethics reform to the highest court in the land.

This is a fight that just became all the more important. So if you believe that we need to hold Supreme Court Justices like Alito and Thomas accountable and that we need judicial ethics reform, then please, support CREW’s work to do just that with a donation today →

Thank you,

Virginia Canter
Chief Ethics Counsel
CREW