Private jets, luxury vacations,
a free RV, according to ProPublica.
That's how Supreme Court Justice Clarence
Thomas apparently lives his life.
But it wasn't always like that.
Back in 2000, about a decade
into his tenure on the Supreme Court,
he complained about his salary
and I mean openly to a member of Congress
saying if lawmakers didn't act, quote, one
or more justices will leave soon, unquote.
That his salary at the time was $173,600,
about $300,000 in today's money.
Now, fast forward to 2019, and Thomas
seems to have changed his tune.
Right now,
what is the
compensation of a justice of the Supreme Court?
Oh, goodness.
I think it's plenty.
My wife and I are doing fine.
We don't
we don't live extravagantly, but we are fine.
Well, a few weeks after that speech,
he hopped on the private jet,
one of his billionaire friends,
and headed off to Indonesia,
where he and his wife, Jenny, vacationed
on that friend's 162 foot yacht.
Sounds fine to me.
So what happened in those 20 years
that made Thomas go
from nearly resigning due to his salary
to now being seemingly more than just fine?
Joining me now is
Justin Elliott. He’s a reporter at ProPublica
and one of the authors of A Delicate Matter.
Clarence Thomas’ private complaints
about money sparked fears he would resign.
You know,
Justin, I'm glad that you're glad you're here.
Thank you so much for joining us
because you're reporting
that Justice Thomas told a lawmaker
that Supreme Court justices should get a raise
or that he feared
one or more will leave soon, that’s his quote.
So what happened after he raised concerns
about his salary?
Yeah, well, it raised alarms.
I mean, the congressman who's now retired,
who I talked to, said that he left
that conversation worried that Justice Thomas
was the justice that was going to resign
in short order if Congress didn't
raise salaries for justices
that congressmen pushed
to get the salaries raised.
Another top official magician
wrote a memo to the chief justice
at the time of the Supreme Court and said,
you know, this seems like a crisis.
What should we do about it?
Interestingly, Congress
never actually got its act together
to give the justices a raise.
But as you mentioned,
this was the same period where Justice
Thomas was really beginning
to develop
relationships with a number of very,
very wealthy businessmen who started paying
for various things in his life.
You know,
he paints himself and I note,
of course, that that money
that he was earning at the time,
he said that compared to now is about $300,000.
And, you know,
he changed his tune quite significantly.
He sort of paints himself now
as a kind of everyman.
Listen to this.
So you hear him
talking about that
and we're showing the audience
at different point
some of the gifts
that he reportedly received, by the way,
from from his wealthy benefactors.
And some would look at this as a big contrast
to the supposed everyday man.
I'm not doubting that
he, in fact, likes to do what he has
said he does and likes being in those places.
But there's a disconnect
for some hearing their public, the ProPublica
reporting and what he's saying there.
Can you help us understand that context?
Sure.
Yeah.
I mean, so
as you pointed out,
I mean, as a Supreme Court justice,
he makes around $300,000
a year,
which is far more than the average American,
but doesn't make you super rich.
But what we and others have found
is that there's a small set of,
you know, wealthy in some cases
billionaire businessmen,
many of them Republican political donors
who have stepped into Justice Thomas's life
and really subsidized his lifestyle,
elevated it to a lot to the level of, you know,
as the CEO of a company or,
you know, a rich businessman.
So what we found,
he has been taken on, you know,
literally dozens of of international vacations
on private jets, super yachts.
The Dallas businessman Harlan Crowe
paid around $100,000 of private
school tuition for
Justice.
Thomas's relative who the justice was
was raising.
In fact, the very high end RV
he talked about in that clip, which goes for
he paid around half million dollars
for it in today's dollars.
Turns out that money actually was loaned to him
by a friend who later forgave the loan.
So we've seen a, you know, really,
as far as we know, unprecedented pattern
of wealthy businessmen
subsidizing the life
of a Supreme Court justice.
So even though the salary was never
significantly raised by Congress,
he was able to attain this higher lifestyle
thanks to these people
that that came into his life.
Now, he would suggest, of course,
this is merely coincidental that he they didn't
nobody was giving him anything in return
for something judicial favor
or a favorable ruling of any kind.
He would
he would write this off as merely coincidental.
And the perks of a friendship
like anybody else.
And he,
I'm sure,
argues that ProPublica
has just been picking on him, Justin,
and that they're trying to single him out.
What's your reaction to that, given, of course,
there has been recently, obviously this
this code of conduct
now that has been issued by the Supreme Court
and a lot of teeth behind it, I admit that.
But what is your reaction to his statements
that suggest this is merely coincidental
and nothing that even hints at impropriety?
Yeah, well, I guess a couple of things.
One is
that we've been talking to a lot of judges,
Republicans and Democrats, liberals
and conservatives, and we've been struck by
how just across the board ideologically, judges
have told us
they wouldn't
even let a lawyer buy them lunch for $30,
let alone take $100,000 of private school
tuition or dozens of free vacations.
So the reason we've been writing about Justice
Thomas is we simply haven't found anything
even close to like this
when it comes to the other justices.
You know, Justice Thomas didn't
comment for this latest story.
We did talk to I spoke to a Yale law
professor who spent time with Justice Thomas
and his principal benefactor,
Harlan Crow, is vacation with them.
And that professor's view of
their relationship was, look,
I don't
he doesn't think that Harlan Crowe
is trying to influence Justice Thomas's views.
He thinks that Harlan Crowe
is trying to keep him comfortable.
He thinks his salary is and isn't high enough,
and therefore he provides these benefits
to him to elevate his lifestyle.
So but,
you know, as
you point out at the beginning of the segment,
Justice Thomas's recent
public comments about his salary
are very,
very different than what he was saying
privately 20 years ago.
And the salary has not changed.