Justice Thomas helped kill eviction ban threatening his benefactor’s business
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas voted to end federal tenant protections that his billionaire benefactor’s company says threatened its real estate profit margins, according to corporate documents reviewed by The Lever. Thomas did not disclose his relationship with real estate billionaire Harlan Crow, nor did he recuse himself from the 2021 case, despite its potential impact on Crow Holdings.
Now, rent control — which Crow Holdings’ documents also say threatens the company’s business — could come before Thomas, and there is no indication he would recuse himself if it does.
Recent reporting by ProPublica found that Thomas failed to disclose two decades’ worth of luxury gifts provided by Crow, as well as Crow’s purchase of properties owned by Thomas, in apparent violation of longstanding federal ethics rules.
Crow Holdings’ financial disclosures about eviction moratoria and rent control — coupled with revelations that Thomas was accepting lavish, undisclosed gifts from Crow — contradicts the notion that the conservative justice never ruled on matters related to his benefactor’s business. [Continue reading…]
Harlan Crow, the billionaire GOP donor who paid for luxury travel on his private jet and yacht for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, was a dual citizen of the U.S. and the island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis as recently as last year, according to recently unearthed documents.
In 2012, Crow and his family were granted passports for St. Kitts and Nevis, a tax haven known for impenetrable financial secrecy, through a cash-for-citizenship scheme. Documents provided to the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation by a whistleblower as part of its Passport Papers investigation and reviewed by the Project on Government Oversight, or POGO, and The Intercept suggest Crow and his brother Trammell S. Crow paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for the passports. Financial transparency experts say the island’s tax regime would make tracking Crow’s assets, including gifts to Supreme Court justices, extremely difficult. [Continue reading…]