Why Isn't Political Bribery Treated As A Crime That Sends People Like Harlan Crow To Prison?

Harlan Crow is a Texas-born billionaire who bought citizenship in Saint Kitts and Nevis, a micro state in the Caribbean, the smallest sovereign state in the Western Hemisphere. The country’s Citizenship by Investment program is widely criticized for being attractive to individuals, like Crow, seeking to evade taxes or launder money. There are no income, capital gains or inheritance taxes. It’s one of the money-laundering and tax evasion capitals of the world.

Before the Clarence Thomas bribery case broke onto the front pages of the newspapers, Crow was probably best known for two lawsuits, one in 2009 when he was sued by his 5 siblings for taking control of his senile father’s estate and one in 2016 when he was caught buying stolen antiquities from Iraq— which he was forced to return (and pay a $3 million fine). He is also a founder of the neo-fascist Club for Growth and a major underwriter to Nancy Jacobsen’s (and Joe Lieberman’s) right-of-center No Labels group and a major collector of Nazi memorabilia, including paintings by Hitler and an autographed copy of Mein Kampf. Less reported is that Crow’s backyard garden is home to at least 20 statues of authoritarian leaders like Stalin, Castro, Mao, Lenin, Hosni Mubarak, Tito, Nicolae Ceausescu, Walter Ulbricht and Bela Kun.

He’s in the news today because on Monday the Senate Judiciary Committee sent him a letter asking for a full accounting of the bribes he’s given to Thomas and other corrupt justices. Liz Goodwin and Marianne Levine reported that this is meant to pressure the Supreme Court “to adopt stricter ethical standards for itself. Judiciary Committee Chair Richard Durbin (D-IL) and the committee’s 10 other Democrats signed on to the letter asking Crow to provide an itemized list of gifts worth more than $415 that he’s made to Thomas, any other justice or any justice’s family member, as well as a full list of lodging, transportation, real estate transactions and admission to any private clubs Crow may have provided.”

The Judiciary Committee is now the second Senate committee to target Crow after ProPublica reported that the Republican donor invited Thomas on pricey vacations, bought his mother’s house, and provided Thomas’ grandnephew with private school tuition, most of which were not disclosed by the justice.

…The Judiciary Committee also sent letters Monday to three companies associated with the Republican donor’s travels that facilitated the private resort, private jet and super-yacht travel where Thomas has joined Crow, asking those companies to provide a list of other guests whose travel overlapped with Thomas’s or that of any other justice.

For example, the committee asked the company Topridge Holdings for a full list of guests who stayed at Camp Topridge— Crow’s private lakeside resort— while Thomas was there as a personal guest of Crow’s.

Supreme Court justices are required to disclose gifts of over $415, but the rules around gifts involving personal hospitality were murkier. The Judicial Conference, the courts’ policymaking body, recently changed disclosure rules to require justices and other federal judges to report more details of gifts, including free stays at hotels or hunting lodges, and clarified that a ride on a private jet, for example, must be reported.

“Regardless of the intentions behind these stays, if these gifts to Justice Thomas enabled those with interests before the Court to have private access to a Justice, it is a matter of significant public concern,” the senators wrote. The committee also asked for details about any stays that other Supreme Court justices may have had at the Adirondacks resort.

All 11 of the committee’s Democrats, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)— who’s been absent for months for health reasons— signed the letters, and none of the committee’s Republicans joined.

If Crow ignores the request for information by the committee’s May 22 deadline, it’s unclear what Durbin’s next move would be. With Feinstein absent from the Judiciary Committee, the committee’s Democrats lack the votes to subpoena anyone until she returns, given unanimous Republican opposition to the idea. But Durbin has also expressed reluctance to use the committee’s subpoena power on Crow, saying last week it’s “rare” for the committee to use its subpoena power. He also suggested he would not ask Crow to appear in front of his committee, given the billionaire would likely refuse.

But in an interview with CNN on Sunday, Durbin did not rule out a subpoena, saying “everything is on the table” and that he hasn’t made a determination either way. He also said he was embarrassed for Thomas as news continued to drip out about his relationship with Crow and that he hoped Chief Justice John Roberts would move on his own to institute stronger ethical standards for the court.

“This is the Roberts court, and history is going to judge him by the decision he makes on this,” Durbin said. “He has the power to make the difference.”

Durbin last month asked Roberts to appear in front of the committee, but the chief justice declined the request, saying it would be inappropriate given the separation of powers. Roberts also included a “Statement on Ethics Principles and Practices” signed by all nine justices that reaffirmed the disclosure and other rules they abide by, saying they’ve done so for decades.

The letters to Crow and others are part of the committee’s efforts to craft legislation strengthening the ethical rules and standards that apply to Supreme Court justices. “The information gathered from these letters will help identify specific shortcomings in the ‘Statement on Ethics Principles and Practices’ that legislation needs to address,” committee spokeswoman Emily Hampsten said in a statement.

Such legislation would likely face a tough road gaining Republican support, however, as Republicans in Congress have rallied to Thomas’s side. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said Democrats want people to “gasp in horror” that Thomas vacations with his friends. Other Republicans have suggested Democrats are merely angry over the court’s conservative bent and recent decisions, including overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that guaranteed the right to an abortion.

Yet the cascade of unflattering reports about Thomas and some other justices’ undisclosed potential conflicts of interest has fueled calls for ethics reform as polls suggest that Americans have declining trust in the institution. A conservative judicial activist, for example, paid Thomas’s wife Virginia “Ginni” Thomas tens of thousands of dollars for consulting work just over a decade ago, specifying that her name be left off billing paperwork, the Washington Post reported last week.

The reports have also put pressure on Durbin to take a more aggressive stance in pushing for court reform. Late last month, Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) asked Crow to inform his committee whether Crow reported the gifts to Thomas on his taxes. The senator also said he would “explore using other tools at the committee’s disposal” to obtain the information if Crow did not respond by May 8. A spokesman for Wyden did not respond to questions Monday about whether the committee had received a response from Crow.

Fewer than 4 in 10 Americans said they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the Supreme Court, according to an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll released late last month. In 2018, 59 percent said they had faith in the court.

Crow’s bribes don’t just go to members of the Supreme Court. In 2022 alone he gave $350,000 each to McConnell’s and McCarthy’s leadership PACs, $245,600 to the NRSC, $184,400 to the NRCC, $176,250 to the Texas Republican Party, $107,700 to the West Virginia GOP’s Black Bear PAC. He’s given millions of dollars to conservative Republicans and their PACs and has singled out several powerful Republicans for direct contributions, including Senators John Cornyn (TX), Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), Joni Ernst (IA), Ted Cruz (TX), Bill Cassidy (LA), Cindy Hyde-Smith (MS), Marsha Blackburn (TN), Marco Rubio (FL), Mitt Romney (UT), Tom Cotten (AR), Mike Lee (UT), Ted Budd (NC), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Katie Britt (AL), JD Vance (OH), Steve Daines (MT), Ron Johnson (WI), John Boozman (AR), Susan Collins (ME), and Tim Scott (SC), all of whom are now working against the Democrats’ efforts to bring any accountability to Crow and, of course, Clarence Thomas.

Crow is also lavishly funding vulnerable GOP congressmen who are being targeted this cycle, including John James (MI), Ashley Hinson (IA), Marianneette Miller-Meeks (IA), Young Kim (CA), Tom Kean (NJ), Claudia Tenney (NY), Don Bacon (NE), Mike Garcia (CA), Brian Fitzpatrick (PA), Andrew Garbarino (NY), Zach Nunn (IA), David Valadao (CA), Monica De La Cruz (TX), Derrick Van Orden (WI) and Michelle Steel (CA). Oh… and scumbag Blue Dogs Josh Gottheimer (NJ), Jim Costa (CA), Vicente Gonzalez (TX) and Henry Cuellar (TX).