After months of ethics controversies, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas would no doubt like to see an end to the many damaging revelations. Unfortunately for the far-right jurist, the end is not near. The New York Times reported on Wednesday night:
The terms of the private loan were as generous as they were clear: With no money down, Justice Clarence Thomas could borrow more than a quarter of a million dollars from a wealthy friend to buy a 40-foot luxury motor coach, making annual interest-only payments for five years. Only then would the principal come due. But despite the favorable nature of the 1999 loan and a lengthy extension to make good on his obligations, Justice Thomas failed to repay a “significant portion” — or perhaps any — of the $267,230 principal, according to a new report by Democratic members of the Senate Finance Committee.
According to the Senate panel’s findings, nearly nine years after receiving the generous loan, the Supreme Court justice made an unclear number of interest payments, at which point the outstanding debt was forgiven.
The Times’ report, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, spoke to Michael Hamersley, a tax lawyer who has served as a congressional expert witness. “This was, in short, a sweetheart deal,” Hamersley said, adding that the terms of the loan made no logical sense from a business perspective.
For those who might benefit from a refresher, let’s revisit our earlier coverage and review how we arrived at this point.
Thomas has spent much of the year confronting ethics questions that he and his allies have struggled to answer. ProPublica, for example, has taken the lead on exposing Thomas’ unusual and previously undisclosed ties to a Republican megadonor.
In July, the New York Times took the story further, shining a light on previously unreported benefits the justice has received from a “cohort of wealthy and powerful friends,” thanks to his connections established through the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans.
But it was a month later when the Times alerted the public to the circumstances surrounding Thomas’ $267,230 recreational vehicle. He reportedly told friends that he scrimped and saved to afford the RV, but those claims weren’t altogether true: The newspaper found that it was Anthony Welters, one of the justice’s wealthy friends, who helped make the purchase possible.
It was apparently quite a deal:
[I]n 2004, when the principal came due, Justice Thomas did not make good on his debt, according to records obtained by the committee and cited in their report. Instead, Mr. Welters granted him a 10-year extension, with the same interest-only terms. … Then, in late 2008, Mr. Welters simply forgave the balance of the loan, according to the committee’s report.
A lawyer for Thomas disputed the committee’s findings, and claimed the terms of the agreement “were satisfied in full,” but the attorney “did not respond when The Times asked him to reconcile that statement with documents obtained by the committee and cited in its report, including a 2008 letter from Mr. Welters to Justice Thomas stating that he would not seek further payments on the loan despite being entitled to them.” There’s no shortage of questions, not only about whether the high court conservative flouted ethical boundaries, but also related to the tax implications surrounding his alleged “sweetheart deal.” As for whether the Supreme Court will ever have an ethics code of its own, my MSNBC colleague Jordan Rubin noted last week that Justice Amy Coney Barrett conceded that it’d be a “good idea” for the institution to adopt such reforms. Justice Elena Kagan made similar comments a month earlier. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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