WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 21: Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas speaks at the Heritage Foundation on October 21, 2021, in Washington, DC. Clarence Thomas has now served on the Supreme Court for 30 years. He was nominated by former President George H. W. Bush in 1991 and is the second African-American to serve on the high court, following Justice Thurgood Marshall.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has disclosed on legal filings that his family has earned hundreds of thousands of dollars in rental revenue from a company named Ginger Limited Partnership during the last two decades.
However, since 2006, that business has been defunct. It was a Nebraska real estate agency founded in the 1980s by his wife and her family.
Thomas' Family Made Income From a Defunct Company
For over 20 years, Thomas has listed Ginger Limited Partnership as a source of income. However, the report notes that the company was dissolved in 2006 and replaced by another.
The new company, Ginger Holdings, LLC, has a similar name to the previous one, but Thomas does not seem to have any record of it.
CNBC said that Thomas has allegedly been open about his yearly compensation from the previous business. He disclosed in 2021 that his family had a stake in the dissolved company Ginger Limited Partnership valued between $250,000 and $500,000. Between $50,000 to $100,000 was what he said he made that year.
Whether or not the discrepancy can be explained by a simple paperwork mistake raises new questions about the justice's financial dealings. This is especially after a recent ProPublica report revealed that Thomas had accepted lavish trips from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow for over two decades, in apparent violation of a financial disclosure law.
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More than a simple paperwork mistake?
According to The Washington Post, the nonprofit news organization said that Thomas had failed to disclose his trips on his financial declarations. Thomas is 74 years old and is a conservative associate judge on the court who has served on it since 1991.
According to a subsequent ProPublica article, the judge also omitted the fact that Crow had purchased land from him.
The probe provides fresh evidence for Thomas' opponents, who claim he has a conflict of interest by refusing to recuse himself from cases relating to his wife's political activities in conservative circles, such as her participation in conspiracies to overturn the 2020 election.
On Monday, April 10, the Democratic majority of the Senate Judiciary Committee demanded further information be gathered on Thomas' conduct. In a letter, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin of Illinois and the other 10 Democratic members demanded that Chief Justice John Roberts "immediately open" an investigation into "how such conduct could take place" under his watch.
Within the letter, the committee said that a hearing will be held in the coming days to discuss "the need to restore confidence in the Supreme Court's ethical standards."
