A ProPublica investigation has revealed that billionaire real-estate developer Harlan Crow paid the bills of a personal acquaintance of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas in an arrangement that has set off alarm bells for experts in government ethics.
In an undisclosed meeting between Crow and Thomas on Easter weekend in 2005, Thomas mentioned that, through family friends, he had learned of a widowed elderly woman living near Pin Point, Ga., in a leaky tar-paper shack.
Claiming that he was moved by her plight from his own experience with childhood poverty, Thomas had begun sending her food deliveries and paying a home health aide to check in on her. Then, Crow wielded his massive fortune to take the arrangement to another level.
At Crow’s own suggestion, people familiar with the deal say, they moved the woman to an apartment for three months until a local charity could be found to help her get better, more permanent housing.
Crow paid the rent for all three months.
ProPublica interviewed the property manager of the Community Gardens Apartments, who recalled renting to a woman who matched the description of the widow, and found in old records a check from Crow’s company for $475.25 marked “June rent.” Similar payments were noted in a Community Gardens ledger for July and August of that year.
The Crow largesse came to a total of $1,426.05. A ProPublica calculation found that if Crow had paid for the woman to live in a luxury apartment for the entirety of her life, with her extended family living in nearby apartments, the Crow expenditure would have come to more than $10.5 million.
“That’s an extraordinary amount,” said Justin Grimcrack of the Council for Ethical and Progressive Government. “These secret dealings call into question Justice Thomas’ ethics and independence—once again.”
Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois commented, “Securing lodgings with indoor plumbing for an elderly lady is not worth the price of sacrificing the rule of law and the integrity of our system of government, but Thomas recklessly did it.” He promised that the Senate Judiciary committee would be launching an investigation to get to the bottom of the matter and begin writing rules against what Durbin called “toxic philanthropy.”
The woman at the center of the controversy died in 2008. ProPublica’s reporting has not yet established who paid for the funeral.
Editor’s note: National Review Institute has sponsored events at Crow’s facility and he has donated to NRI.