Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?
-
The Truth About Clarence Thomas’s Disclosures
He reported carefully on his inherited real estate. ProPublica’s reporting was slipshod and incurious.
Clarence Thomas lost his beloved maternal grandparents barely a month apart in the spring of 1983. Myers Anderson, whom his grandson knew as “Daddy,” died of a stroke on March 30. Christine Anderson, known as “Aunt Tina,” suffered a stroke as well and died on May 1. “Perhaps, I thought, she’d lost the will to live,” Justice Thomas writes in his 2007 memoir, “My Grandfather’s Son.”
The Andersons, who were 75 and 70 respectively, are buried at Palmyra Baptist Church in Liberty County, Ga. When they died, Mr. Thomas was 34 and chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. “Losing Aunt Tina a month after Daddy was more painful than I could ever have imagined,” he writes. “How could I have let myself grow away from her, or from the man who . . . was the only real father I’d ever had?”
Mr. Thomas inherited a one-third interest in a few modest houses Myers Anderson owned. Forty years later, ProPublica has taken a different kind of interest in those properties. ProPublica describes itself as “an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism with moral force.” It promises “deep-dive reporting” dedicated to “exposing corruption, informing the public about complex issues, and using the power of investigative journalism to spur reform.”
Give ProPublica credit for admitting its journalism has an agenda. So does mine, as the word “opinion” atop this page should make clear. But ProPublica’s acknowledgment that it’s in the opinion business doesn’t excuse it from the obligation to report facts accurately, carefully and thoroughly.
ProPublica has at least three reporters working the Clarence Thomas beat—Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan and Alex Mierjeski. Their story, published last Thursday, is titled “Billionaire Harlan Crow Bought Property From Clarence Thomas. The Justice Didn’t Disclose the Deal.” The troika write that the lack of disclosure “appears to be a violation of the law, four ethics law experts told ProPublica.” That statement is equivocal because it’s a legal theory based on incomplete facts. Justice Thomas didn’t respond to ProPublica’s questions or to mine.
Some facts are known and undisputed. Mr. Crow, a Dallas developer and friend of the justice, confirmed in a written statement to ProPublica that Savannah Historic Development LLC, a company he established, bought “the childhood home of Justice Thomas,” which Mr. Crow plans to convert into a museum “telling the story of our nation’s second black Supreme Court Justice.” Public documents show that the company paid Anderson’s heirs a total of $133,363 for the Savannah house and two adjacent empty lots. According to ProPublica, Justice Thomas’s mother, 94-year-old Leola Williams, lived in the house at least until 2020 and possibly still does.
Assuming Justice Thomas received one-third of the sale price (or any amount more than $1,000), the text of the federal financial-disclosure statute would require him to have reported the transaction in Part VII (“Investments and Trusts”) of his annual AO-10 form for 2014. He didn’t do so and may need to file an amended form.
But my review of Justice Thomas’s disclosures and other documents convinces me that any failure to disclose was an honest mistake. On all other matters involving his scanty real-estate inheritance, he followed the Filing Instructions for Judicial Officers and Employees, prepared by the Committee on Financial Disclosures of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Those instructions don’t make clear the statutory obligation to disclose the 2014 transaction.
Further, the ProPublica troika made a sloppy reporting error, the effect of which is to cast Justice Thomas’s disclosures in a falsely unfavorable light—to make them look shambolic or perhaps even dishonest when in fact they followed the filing instructions without fail.
The reporters’ error involves a confusion about what Justice Thomas did disclose. “By the early 2000s,” ProPublica reports, “he had stopped listing specific addresses of property he owned in his disclosures. But he continued to report holding a one-third interest in what he described as ‘rental property at ## 1, 2, & 3’ in Savannah.” It’s worth noting—ProPublica doesn’t—that the filing instructions (on page 32) prescribe disclosing rental properties in precisely this manner.
The story continues: “Two of the houses were torn down around 2010, according to property records and a footnote in Thomas’ annual disclosure archived by Free Law Project.” That footnote in Justice Thomas’s 2010 disclosure states in full: “Part VII, Line 2 - Two of the Georgia rental properties have been torn down. The only remaining property is an old house in Liberty County.”
Liberty County is where our journey began, but the ProPublica troika somehow missed it on the map. Their story leads the reader to think that the “remaining property” was the Savannah house where Justice Thomas’s mother lived. A Friday letter from the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington—co-signed by Virginia Canter, the first of ProPublica’s “four ethics experts”—expressly says so and accuses Justice Thomas of deceptively disclosing (rather than failing to disclose) the property’s disposition.
The footnote makes clear that this is wrong. There’s a fourth property. Justice Thomas’s 2009 disclosure listed three rental properties in “Sav., GA.” Beginning in 2010, he listed only one, in “Liberty Cty, GA.” Savannah is in Chatham County, not Liberty. But Liberty County is in the Savannah area, roughly a 45-minute drive from the city. For someone living hundreds of miles away, it would have been reasonable to describe the three rental properties collectively as being “in Savannah.”
That implies that Justice Thomas never disclosed his interest in the Savannah house where his mother lived. But he didn’t need to. “Information pertaining to a personal residence is exempted from reporting, unless the property generates rental income,” the filing instructions say on page 33. Nor was there any requirement to disclose the ownership of the other two Savannah properties after the houses were demolished. Who wants to rent an empty lot in Savannah?
When an asset isn’t sold but stops being reportable—in this case because it is no longer capable of generating rental income—page 50 of the filing instructions directs the filer to “insert ‘(Y)’ after the asset description in Column A and leave Columns B-D blank, or include an explanatory note in Part VIII.” Justice Thomas did exactly that for the Savannah rental properties in 2010, and for the Liberty County property in 2015. The latter footnote reads simply: “Line 1: The asset listed on line 1 does not receive any rental income for this property.” This is the disclosure Ms. Canter and her co-signers mistake for a deception.
When my mother died in 2019, I inherited a one-third interest in her house, which I sold to my brother. I understand the statute to mean that if I had been a federal judge, I would be obligated to disclose that transaction. But if I hadn’t been made aware of the statute, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to think of my inheritance as an “investment,” and I searched the filing instructions in vain for language that makes plain a judge’s duty to disclose this sort of transaction.
In Justice Thomas’s circumstances, moreover, the instructions seem to say not to report the sale of the former rental properties. The above-quoted “insert ‘(Y)’ ” language on page 50 is followed immediately by this sentence: “In subsequent years, this asset should be deleted from Part VII.”
One may be tempted to think that of all people a judge should know what the law says. But that’s a nonsensical standard. A judge’s job isn’t to memorize statute books; it’s to discern laws’ meaning and their application to the facts in cases that litigants bring before him. Inasmuch as the law applies to the judge’s personal affairs and interests, he’s in the same boat with the rest of us—often dependent on lawyers or other specialists, such as the Committee on Financial Disclosures of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, to make sense of his duties and rights.
The job of a journalist is similar in some ways to that of a judge. Both involve asking questions, testing arguments, and judiciously ascertaining facts and their significance. ProPublica failed to consider some obvious questions: Where is Liberty County? What is Justice Thomas’s connection to the place? If the remaining rental property was the house Mr. Crow’s company bought, what was it doing on Justice Thomas’s AO-10 for 2015, the year after the sale closed?
Journalists don’t memorize books either. I read “My Grandfather’s Son” when it came out in 2007, but as I researched this article I had to return to it and refresh my memory. “Daddy’s people worked on a three-thousand-acre rice plantation in Liberty County,” Justice Thomas writes, “and after their manumission they stayed nearby. The maternal side of my mother’s family also came from Liberty County, and probably worked on the same plantation.”
Daddy grew up on a family plot known as “the farm,” which “had been passed down undivided from generation to generation, as was often customary with land owned by southern blacks. Any family member was entitled to live there.” The fields were fallow by Christmas 1957, when Clarence was 9 and Daddy decided to build a house there. He enlisted the help of Clarence and his brother, Myers Thomas, and “by springtime we’d finished building a simple four-room house,” writes Justice Thomas, who spent his summers there until he left for college in 1967.
When Aunt Tina died in May 1983, “no sooner did Myers and I go home to the farm after the funeral than some of our relatives started fighting over the contents of the house, declaring that Aunt Tina would have wanted them to have this item or that,” Justice Thomas recounts. “Part of me was disgusted by their greed, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. Death had already stolen the only things in the house that mattered to me.”
Justice Thomas disclosed all this in a book that’s available on Kindle for $13.99. If you’re a journalist whose job is to investigate him, you probably ought to read it—especially if you aspire to produce work “with moral force.”
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
-
@George-K said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:
Assuming Justice Thomas received one-third of the sale price (or any amount more than $1,000), the text of the federal financial-disclosure statute would require him to have reported the transaction in Part VII (“Investments and Trusts”) of his annual AO-10 form for 2014. He didn’t do so and may need to file an amended form.
But my review of Justice Thomas’s disclosures and other documents convinces me that any failure to disclose was an honest mistake.Okay, an honest mistake, and it probably is.
However, If I was audit by the IRS, is telling them it was an "honest mistake" a good defense?
For someone in his position, and if he has as much money (or his wife has as much as said), he should have personnel that are checking this. And then he should have a second set which double checks it.
I have been involved in preparing contracts/white papers, etc. Each of them go through multiple people checking them. Is everything 100% okay by all parties? And then it will get a final review by the Ministry of Law.
He is one of the top judges in the US. All about appearances.
-
@taiwan_girl said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:
Okay, an honest mistake, and it probably is.
However, If I was audit by the IRS, is telling them it was an "honest mistake" a good defense?
No, Is it bad enough for you to lose your job?
For someone in his position, and if he has as much money (or his wife has as much as said), he should have personnel that are checking this.
How many accountants does one need for one's taxes? If you need more than one, perhaps you've hired the wrong one to begin with.
All about appearances.
And the shaping thereof.
-
@taiwan_girl said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:
@George-K said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:
Assuming Justice Thomas received one-third of the sale price (or any amount more than $1,000), the text of the federal financial-disclosure statute would require him to have reported the transaction in Part VII (“Investments and Trusts”) of his annual AO-10 form for 2014. He didn’t do so and may need to file an amended form.
But my review of Justice Thomas’s disclosures and other documents convinces me that any failure to disclose was an honest mistake.Okay, an honest mistake, and it probably is.
However, If I was audit by the IRS, is telling them it was an "honest mistake" a good defense?
For someone in his position, and if he has as much money (or his wife has as much as said), he should have personnel that are checking this. And then he should have a second set which double checks it.
I have been involved in preparing contracts/white papers, etc. Each of them go through multiple people checking them. Is everything 100% okay by all parties? And then it will get a final review by the Ministry of Law.
He is one of the top judges in the US. All about appearances.
But the answer is he just needs to file an amended return. This story is even more of a nothingburger than the selling of the house and lots.
-
@taiwan_girl said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:
And the beat goes on.
"Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas reported receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars of rental income from a real estate company since it dissolved more than a decade ago in 2006, according to The Washington Post.
The firm, Ginger Limited Partnership, was created in 1982 by his wife Ginni Thomas and her relatives, WaPo reported. Ginni, her parents, and her three siblings were partners at the firm, according to the report.
The company dissolved in 2006, and state records show a new firm was created the same year under a similar name, Ginger Holdings, LLC. But since then, Thomas reported receiving a total of $270,000 to $750,000 from the defunct firm, records reviewed by WaPo showed. The exact amounts are unknown because the disclosure forms only ask for a range to be reported."
I believe that this one is a whole lot of "nothing". I am guessing that the name of the company changed and he did not change it on his reporting forms.
BUT, Judge Thomas is one of the top judges in the US........... Is ignorance an excuse?
Do you honestly believe Thomas does his own taxes? Please.
But...if you believe it's a nothing, why did you post it? Jolly is right. This does not even rise to the standard of yellow journalism. It's propaganda, pure and simple.
-
You guys make good points. The reason I posted it is because of his position. Rightly or not, someone like him is held to a higher standard.
If Judge Thomas's tax people/accountants/form submittal people are making these mistakes, then yes, he needs to hire someone else. But ultimately, I am sure he is signing the form himself, whether or not he prepared it. "The Buck Stops Here"
There are a jillion threads on this forum board where an action by a public figure (for example President Biden) is posted (and I have done that before also) that if it were an ordinary person, nobody would give it a second glance. "President Biden did this!!! OMG." "President Trump did that! OMG"
For example, if I am a fence repairman, and I do something wrong (drunk drive, shoplift, pay off a porn actress, LOL), there would be no consequence to my job, nor would it even make the news..
If I am a public official and do the same thing, there would be a good possible chance I would either resign or ask to resign.
-
@taiwan_girl said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:
You guys make good points. The reason I posted it is because of his position. Rightly or not, someone like him is held to a higher standard.
If Judge Thomas's tax people/accountants/form submittal people are making these mistakes, then yes, he needs to hire someone else. But ultimately, I am sure he is signing the form himself, whether or not he prepared it. "The Buck Stops Here"
There are a jillion threads on this forum board where an action by a public figure (for example President Biden) is posted (and I have done that before also) that if it were an ordinary person, nobody would give it a second glance. "President Biden did this!!! OMG." "President Trump did that! OMG"
For example, if I am a fence repairman, and I do something wrong (drunk drive, shoplift, pay off a porn actress, LOL), there would be no consequence to my job, nor would it even make the news..
If I am a public official and do the same thing, there would be a good possible chance I would either resign or ask to resign.
But you miss the point - all of these stories are slanted, un-researched horsecrap with only a political aim. It's not journalism, it's partisan attacks. There's just nothing there in any of these stories.
-
I've been through an audit, where we had to take everything with us downtown and spend the entire day answering questions. Our accountant at the time refused to go with us, and TG you are correct, the "buck stops here" (me), and not with the accountant.
And yes, the IRS agent can let things slide if she wants to, it comes down to how the interaction is going and how well questions are answered and most importantly, what documentation you provide. The IRS agent can find things in anyone's tax return, there is no way anyone is going to go through an audit without there being one thing or another denied.
I ended up writing a check for $4,000 at the end of the day. It could have been more, or maybe less. That person is very powerful, it's best to get along well as the IRS can make life very miserable. And Thomas is way up the ladder where he's being used, or will be used, as much as they can. -
Never been audited, but I've gotten a couple of letters over the years. I didn't even quibble, just paid them with a smile.
The IRS is the only agency I know that can seize everything you have without going before a judge. Couple that with byzantine tax laws and there is no such thing as a clean audit. Not if they don't want it to be.
The biggest question between you and your accountant is how aggressive do you wish your accountant to be? I always figure let's be aggressive within the law and pay for any mistakes as discovered.
-
It's pretty hard to get charged with anything. You don't always have to be right, but you have to have a position as to why something is deductible.
That knowledge comes from having accountants as friends. I've never been audited, although I've always been in the sweet spot for getting one - self-employed and income of a certain amount. I have had things questioned in letters but have always prevailed.
-
https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-harlan-crow-private-school-tuition-scotus
Harlan Crow also paid for Clarance Thomas' grandson's private school tuition. Though the child is Thomas' biological grandson, Thomas has taken custody of the child at the time and had publicly stated that he was raising the child as a son.
Personally, I think it's perfectly cool that a grandparent raises a grandchild when the parents cannot.
Maybe they do subscribe to some version of Biden's saying that "there is no such thing as someone else's child."
C'mon, @LuFins-Dad and @Jolly, tell me it's OK and not out of the ordinary, short of officially winning a scholarship or qualifying for financial aid, for a U.S. judge to let non-family pays for his (grand)child's private school tuition.
-
Pop quiz: Which of these two Justices didn't recuse him/her self in a case involving an entity that he/she profited from?
Justice Sonia Sotomayor declined to recuse herself from multiple copyright infringement cases involving book publisher Penguin Random House despite having been paid millions by the firm for her books, making it by far her largest source of income, records show.
In 2010, she got a $1.2 million book advance from Knopf Doubleday Group, a part of the conglomerate. In 2012, she reported receiving two advance payments from the publisher totaling $1.9 million.
In 2013, Sotomayor voted in a decision for whether the court should hear a case against the publisher called Aaron Greenspan v. Random House, despite then-fellow Justice Stephen Breyer recusing after also receiving money from the publisher. Greenspan was a Harvard classmate of Mark Zuckerberg’s who wrote a book about the founding of Facebook and contended that Random House rejected his book proposal and then awarded a deal to another author who copied his book and eventually turned it into the movie The Social Network.
In 2017, Sotomayor began receiving payments each year from Penguin Random House itself, which continued annually through at least 2021, the most recent disclosure available, and totaled more than $500,000. In all, she received $3.6 million from Penguin Random House or its subsidiaries, according to a Daily Wire tally of financial disclosures.
In October 2019, children’s author Jennie Nicassio petitioned the Supreme Court to hear her lawsuit against Penguin Random House alleging that the book publisher had copied her book by selling one that was nearly identical. On the same day that the petition was distributed to the justices, Sotomayor received a $10,586 check from the publisher.
On February 24, 2020, the Supreme Court voted not to hear the case, denying the “writ of certiorari” and meaning that the case would remain where it left off — with a circuit court having found in the publisher’s favor. Sotomayor’s next check, coming in May of that year, was her largest ever from the parent company, at $82,807.
The Supreme Court does not reveal how individual justices vote when it comes to “cert,” but it does note when they recuse, which Sotomayor did not. Her decision not to recuse is particularly notable because Breyer again recused. Breyer received payments from Penguin Random House or Knopf each year, which he seemingly viewed as a conflict, even though he received only a tenth of the amount — $340,000 during the same time period — as Sotomayor (Breyer’s wife also wrote a book for the company).In 2017, Sotomayor began receiving payments each year from Penguin Random House itself, which continued annually through at least 2021, the most recent disclosure available, and totaled more than $500,000. In all, she received $3.6 million from Penguin Random House or its subsidiaries, according to a Daily Wire tally of financial disclosures.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
-
@George-K said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:
In 2017, Sotomayor began receiving payments each year from Penguin Random House itself, which continued annually through at least 2021, the most recent disclosure available, and totaled more than $500,000. In all, she received $3.6 million from Penguin Random House or its subsidiaries, according to a Daily Wire tally of financial disclosures.
Oh, how nice of her to DISCLOSE how much money she gets and from where she gets her money.
Say, @George-K, was that a new article or something recently published? Did any one raise any complain at the time? It's not something being brought up just to distract the attention from Thomas, is it?
In any case, someone compiles a list of instances where justices should have recused themselves but did not: https://fixthecourt.com/2023/05/recent-times-justice-failed-recuse-despite-clear-conflict-interest/
Pretty much every current SCOTUS justice is cited except maybe Kavanaugh. Have fun looking it over.
-
@Axtremus said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:
Oh, how nice of her to DISCLOSE how much money she gets and from where she gets her money.
Because it was required by the rules of the court. She followed the rules.
Thomas's trips with Crow were not disclosed because, at the time, it was not required by the rules.
I admire both Justices for adhering to the standards established by the court.
ETA:
list of instances where justices should have recused themselves but did not
Yes, and that list doesn't list anything about Harlan Crow, but confirms the story about Sotomayor.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
-
@George-K said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:
Yes, and that list doesn't list anything about Harlan Crow, but confirms the story about Sotomayor.
Thomas’ case is a developing story, we do not know how quickly that list gets updated.
-
@Axtremus said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:
@George-K said in Did Clarence Thomas Do anything Wrong?:
Yes, and that list doesn't list anything about Harlan Crow, but confirms the story about Sotomayor.
Thomas’ case is a developing story, we do not know how quickly that list gets updated.
Dance, monkey. Dance.
Always remember, Operation Valkyrie was an act of sedition.
Warning: I post things that interest me. Read and comment at your own discretion. -
Hey @Jolly,
https://nodebb.the-new-coffee-room.club/post/217506
…
C'mon, @LuFins-Dad and @Jolly, tell me it's OK and not out of the ordinary, short of officially winning a scholarship or qualifying for financial aid, for a U.S. judge to let non-family pays for his (grand)child's private school tuition.
