Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) strongly condemned the revelations in a ProPublica report about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, calling the conservative jurist’s acceptance of luxury travel and other gifts from a Republican megadonor an example of “troubling ethical conduct” and vowing his committee would take action.

The report, published Thursday morning, describes Thomas and his wife, conservative activist Ginni Thomas, traveling via private jets and superyachts to vacation at luxurious resorts, all at the expense of Harlan Crow, a wealthy Dallas real estate developer with a long history of generously supporting conservative causes, including being a founding member of the Club For Growth and donating millions of dollars to GOP candidates.

The report drew swift and loud criticism of the Thomases, specifically ProPublica’s suggestion that these travel expenses might run afoul of federal law:

These trips appeared nowhere on Thomas’ financial disclosures. His failure to report the flights appears to violate a law passed after Watergate that requires justices, judges, members of Congress and federal officials to disclose most gifts, two ethics law experts said. He also should have disclosed his trips on the yacht, these experts said.

According to ProPublica, Thomas did not respond to a request for comment, but Crow released a statement, which “acknowledged that he’d extended ‘hospitality’ to the Thomases ‘over the years,’ but said that Thomas never asked for any of it and it was ‘no different from the hospitality we have extended to our many other dear friends.'”

Durbin, the top-ranking Democrat on the powerful Judiciary Committee, blasted Thomas’ “20 years” of “acceptance of undisclosed luxury gifts” in a statement, calling it “troubling ethical conduct.”

 

“The highest court in the land shouldn’t have the lowest ethical standards,” wrote Durbin. “Today’s Pro Publica report reveals that Justice Thomas has for ears accepted luxury travel on private vachts and jets and a litany of other gifts that he failed to disclose. This behavior is simply inconsistent with the ethical standards the American people expect of any public servant, let alone a Justice on the Supreme Court.”

“Today’s report demonstrates, yet again, that Supreme Court Justices must be held to an enforceable code of conduct, just like every other federal judge,” he concluded. “The Pro Publica report is a call to action, and the Senate Judiciary Committee will act.”

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