Clarence Thomas’s Luxury Vacations Are Paid for by a Republican Megadonor

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has spent decades secretly enjoying lavish island-hopping excursions on superyachts and on-demand private jet rides courtesy of a billionaire Republican megadonor, ProPublica has revealed.

Harlan Crow, a real estate tycoon, reportedly has gifted Thomas an array of luxurious trips “virtually every year” for more than 20 years, including a nine-day adventure in Indonesia on a yacht staffed with attendants and a private chef, as well as visits to Crow’s exclusive “all-male” retreat in California, his Texas ranch, and his private resort in the Adirondacks.

And Thomas disclosed none of it. While the gifts themselves are permissible, shockingly, ProPublica notes that Thomas’s failure to disclose them violates a law passed after Watergate that applies to justices, judges, members of Congress, and other federal officials.

The warm relationship between Thomas and Crow began some three decades ago, and Crow wasted no time in showering Thomas with gifts. One of the first, which Thomas did kindly disclose, was a $19,000 Bible originally owned by Frederick Douglass. The gift giving has continued ever since—and not just to the justice. Thomas’s wife, Ginni, joined many of the trips—such as the Indonesian jaunt—and as Politico revealed in 2011, Crow has given at least $500,000 to a Tea Party group she founded (and which later shut down).

This is hardly the first of the couple’s ethical entanglements. Ginni Thomas was intimately involved in attempts to overturn the 2020 election, as revealed in texts with numerous officials, including Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows. In January 2022, her husband was the only justice to vote against ordering the release of the paper trail of such communications.

The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer reported that same month that Ginni Thomas “has held leadership positions at conservative pressure groups that have either been involved in cases before the Court or have had members engaged in such cases.” The following month, The New York Times Magazine described “the extent to which Justice Thomas flouted judicial-ethics guidance by participating in events hosted by conservative organizations with matters before the court.”

That was enough for TNR to crown the couple “Scoundrels of the Year.” As editor Michael Tomasky wrote last December, “No one has damaged the Supreme Court’s reputation more than the Thomases. It’s one thing to have a hard-right ideology.… But to impose that vision on the democracy while flouting its rules, which literally every other Supreme Court justice has followed? That shows contempt for the democracy they tell themselves they are saving, and it announces to the rest of us that nothing is more important to Clarence Thomas than using his remaining time on the court, and this earth, to do as much as he can—with Ginni surely egging him on—to force his extremist agenda on us.”

Idaho’s Republican governor, Brad Little, has signed a law banning people from helping others access abortions.

The bill, which became law Wednesday, would ban any adult from taking a minor out of state to get an abortion or abortion medication without their parents’ consent. The measure originally said this would constitute human trafficking but was later amended to use the phrase “abortion trafficking.”

Anyone who helps a minor obtain an abortion out of state could face up to five years in prison. The bill also changed existing law to say that the person who impregnated the minor, even if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, can sue over the abortion. The new law makes no exceptions for minors who are in abusive households, and it does not clarify whether both parents need to consent to the abortion or just one.

If a local prosecutor declines to take the case, the law says, the Republican state attorney general can take the case instead.

Idaho Senate Minority Leader Melissa Wintrow, a Democrat, warned last week that the bill is “unnecessary and unneeded and further shackles young girls who are in trouble, and then it harms the parents’ friends, the relatives, etc., who are trying to help her.”

Abortion has been banned in Idaho since Roe v. Wade was overturned, with exceptions to save the pregnant person’s life or for rape or incest. But rape and incest survivors must first report the crime to law enforcement before they can get an abortion. Neighboring states including California, Washington, and Oregon have touted themselves as safe places to get an abortion, but Idaho’s new law will make it all the more difficult to access those services.

Idaho is not the first Republican-led state to try to criminalize traveling out of state for an abortion, although it is the first to codify it into law.

In March, before the Dobbs draft opinion had even been leaked, Republican state lawmakers in Missouri introduced a bill that would allow individuals to sue anyone who helped a state resident get an abortion, including an out-of-state health care provider or anyone providing transportation across state lines. State House lawmakers blocked the bill a few weeks later.

Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives reintroduced a bill in February that would protect anyone seeking an abortion out of their home state, as well as anyone who helps them. But the bill has yet to even make it to committee and is unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled chamber.

Ever since Brandon Johnson began to ascend in the Chicago mayoral election, armchair experts hammered away at the notion that his campaign was “dogged” by issues surrounding crime. The thinking was that a candidate who has called for a reimagination of public safety is inherently signing up for an uphill battle, and cannot win without changing that vision.

Chicago voters proved those national pundits wrong on Tuesday when they elected Johnson to serve as their next mayor. Presumably, as the people actually living in Chicago, they chose someone who they thought would keep them safe. So it’s worth revisiting those media narratives on crime and the baked-in assumptions beneath them—in the hopes that fewer people in the media will participate in these narratives, or that they’ll even just let them slide.

The main argument seems to be encapsulated in a New York Times headline on Johnson’s victory: “Brandon Johnson Elected Chicago Mayor, Turning Back Tough-on-Crime Opponent.”

Other stories perpetuated the idea that only one of the two candidates would be “tough” on crime.

In March, a Politico story read that “some in the [Democratic] party” believed that neither Vallas and Johnson were “particularly compelling.” But the story went on to quote Paul Vallas adviser Joe Tripp, who said, “You do have someone who has talked about defunding and I just don’t know why any national people would get into that debate.”

Another New York Post story postured Vallas as the only anti-crime candidate—which would, of course, imply that Johnson is somehow “pro-crime,” rather than someone proposing a different vision of how to be “tough” on crime.

“Look what happened in Chicago,” Democratic consultant James Carville told NBC News in early March, arguing why crime was the “front and center issue” that Democrats should be tackling. Carville seemed to be referring to the ousting of incumbent Mayor Lori Lightfoot and success of Vallas, as if Johnson wasn’t also still in the running for mayor.

Yet another Axios story boldly proclaimed, “‘Defund the police’ dogs Chicago mayoral candidate Brandon Johnson.”

The story, which did not include thoughts from voters actually interested in Johnson’s candidacy, focused on comments he made in 2020 expressing support to “redirect and defund the amount of money that is spent in policing.” The story was published a day after Johnson had modulated his earlier comments, saying in a debate that he would not defund the police.

But Johnson still maintained the broader spirit of his vision, one that he has spent months proposing to the public. In January, he told TNR that the best way forward for Chicago is to invest more in mental health, housing, year-round youth employment opportunities, and the like. He envisions deeper crime prevention, rather than just carceral crime response.

You wouldn’t have picked up on that from all the stories published on Johnson’s supposedly uphill campaign, all the result of assumptions—constructed and affirmed, year after year—about what it means to stop crime.

We are quick to deem throwing cash haphazardly at the police or building more jails as solutions; we are less conditioned to imagine preventing crime as meaning to ensure people feel economically secure, mentally healthy, or able to pursue a solid education. The default mindset persists even as our political and media apparatuses archetypically frame a “criminal” as poor, or mentally unstable, or uneducated.

But again, Chicago voters—like all voters—care about preventing crime and cultivating safe and healthy communities. They just happened to look past the media narratives that suggested that such a vision could only be accomplished in one way (a way that has not seemed to work despite its primacy the last few decades). And in looking past such lazy narratives, and holding onto their sincere hopes for a stronger Chicago, the people elected Brandon Johnson.

Indiana and Idaho banned gender-affirming care for transgender minors in less than 24 hours, as a Republican-led nationwide assault on trans rights appears to be ramping up.

Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb signed Senate Bill 480 into law Wednesday, despite protests from hundreds of medical professionals and trans kids and their families. The law bans all gender-affirming care, including hormone therapy and puberty blockers, for people under 18. It also bans surgical interventions, despite repeated testimony that no such surgeries were performed on minors in the state.

Minors currently receiving gender-affirming care can continue to do so until the end of the year. Health care providers who break this law will be subject to discipline by their regulatory board.

Less than 24 hours before, Idaho Governor Brad Little signed a similar bill into law. House Bill 71 bans all gender-affirming care for trans kids, and makes it a felony for a medical professional to help a minor seek such treatment. Those care providers could face a $5,000 fine.

The ACLU announced Wednesday that it has filed lawsuits against both laws, calling the Indiana measure “cruel and unconstitutional” and the Idaho one “clear government overreach and … unacceptable” in separate statements.

These two laws are the latest in a Republican-led onslaught of anti-trans legislation that only seems to be picking up speed. Just last week, Kentucky lawmakers overrode Democratic Governor Andy Beshear’s veto of one of the most extreme anti-trans measures in the country, forcing the legislative package into law.

Beshear had warned the measure would cause an “increase in suicide among Kentucky’s youth.”

Republicans in Texas, Florida, and Kansas have pushed anti-trans measures in the last few days. North Dakota’s Republican-led legislature and Republican governor are in a standoff about yet another.

The bills’ backers argue that they are protecting children by barring them from gender-affirming care. But major medical organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, support giving gender-confirming care to children, deeming it medically necessary and even lifesaving.

Gender-affirming care actually decreases the amount of depression and anxiety that trans and nonbinary teenagers feel. It also makes them less likely to consider suicide. But targeting LGBTQ people through legislation only demonizes them and puts the community at higher risk of violent attacks.

Florida Republicans are pushing forward a bill that seeks to ban drag shows from allowing someone under the age of 18 to be in attendance.

But the bill is so vaguely worded, using the term “adult live performance,” that even Republican lawmakers have admitted it would prevent a high school kid from watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show or even the musical Hair.

The bill also explicitly targets Pride parades and celebrations, by preventing a government entity from issuing permits to an organization that may put on such a performance. If a violation occurs, say in a city like St. Petersburg, which hosts the largest Pride celebration in the state, the person who issued the permit could be charged with a misdemeanor.

In addition, any establishment that violates the law would be subject to license suspension or revocation and liable to large fines and a misdemeanor charge. One violation would spur a $5,000 fine; subsequent incidents would spur $10,000 fines.

The bill defines “adult live performance” to include “any show, exhibition or other presentation in front of a live audience,” that in any form “depicts or simulates nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or specific sexual activities,” such as “lewd conduct, or the lewd exposure of prosthetic or imitation genitals or breasts.”

The bill is concerned especially with any such conduct that is deemed “patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community of this state as a whole with respect to what is suitable material or conduct for the age of the child present.” It’s unclear what those standards are, and at which Adult Community Conference they were hashed out.

“Politicians are imposing their personal beliefs on Floridians by punishing businesses that support the LGBTQ+ community,” said the Florida ACLU. “This is a far cry from the ‘Free state of Florida’ that Governor DeSantis is claiming to promote.”

While Florida Republicans advance this bill, they and other Republicans have been busy just this week pushing forth other anti–civil rights legislation throughout the country. Idaho and Indiana both instituted bans on gender-affirming care for trans people under the age of 18. Florida and Texas advanced their own similar bills banning gender-affirming care, and Kansas advanced legislation banning transgender people from using public bathrooms or even being able to update their name or gender on their driver’s license. Florida Senate Republicans also passed an extreme six-week abortion ban. 

All in all, these Republicans are doubling down on infringing upon people’s civil rights under the guise of “protecting the children,” while thousands of students demand actual protection in the form of taking action on mass shootings and gun violence. But no matter for Florida Republicans; just last week, they made it legal to carry concealed weapons in the state without a permit, training, or background checks.