Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was asked Monday afternoon about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s relationship with Harlan Crow, a Republican donor who paid for luxury trips for the justice.
Thomas’s financial discrepancies with Harlan Crow were exposed earlier this month, revealing Thomas failed to disclose luxury travel and gifts received over the years. Thomas also failed to disclose a 2014 real estate deal with the Dallas, Texas, megadonor — in which Crow made the purchases involving three properties in Savannah, Georgia, through one of his companies, for a total of $133,363.
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McConnell said Democrats spend a large amount of time criticizing members of the court, stating his counterpart threatened two justices with reprisal if they ruled in opposition in a case.
“The Democrats, it seems to me, spend a lot of time criticizing individual members of the court and going after the court as an institution,” McConnell said.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-IL) and 10 other Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts on April 10, saying Thomas’s failure to disclose to the public was “plainly inconsistent with the ethical standards the American people expect of any person in a position of public trust.”
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The Senate Judiciary Committee plans to hold a hearing about the Supreme Court’s ethical standards after revelations from a ProPublic report showed Thomas failed to provide information about the expenses, violating disclosure laws.
“I have total confidence in the chief justice of the United States to deal with these court internal issues,” McConnell said.
