Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas plans to amend his financial disclosure forms to include a 2014 deal to sell properties in Georgia to a billionaire, CNN reported Sunday night.
A source close to the justice said Thomas didn’t believe he had to disclose the deal as he lost money on the transaction, adding the exclusion was an oversight and that he fills out financial documents with the help of aides. Despite that assertion, federal law appears to require any real estate deal to be reported on financial disclosure forms, regardless if the person makes a profit.
The real estate transaction was first reported last week by ProPublica, nearly a decade after it took place. The outlet detailed the sale of three properties in Savannah, Georgia, to Harlan Crow, a Texas billionaire and longtime friend of Thomas and his wife. It’s the first known instance of money going directly from Crow to Thomas.
The three properties — a home and two vacant lots — were purchased by Crow for $133,363 from the justice, his mother and the family of his late brother. Contractors later made improvements to one of the properties where Thomas’ mother still lives. The deal included a provision that she live there rent-free for the rest of her life, although she pays property taxes and insurance.
Crow said last week he purchased the three properties at “market rate” to someday “create a public museum at the Thomas home” dedicated to his life. (He still owns the home, but has since sold the vacant lots.)
The scandal is the second involving Crow in two weeks. ProPublica also published a report detailing nearly 20 years of lavish trips in which Thomas accompanied Crow on his yacht, his private jet and at a private resort in the Adirondack mountains. The justice did not disclose the trips, which took place nearly every year.
“Early in my tenure at the court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the court, was not reportable,” he said after the report.
Thomas has not yet commented on the real estate deal.
Democrats issued immediate calls for an investigation into the matter. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the justice should be referred to the Justice Department for his failure to disclose the gifts.