type: timeline_event In January 2018, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas flew on a private jet to Palm Springs, California to speak at the annual winter donor summit of the Koch network, attending a private dinner for donors in what ProPublica later revealed was an extraordinary ethics violation.
Thomas was brought in to speak at the summit in the hopes that such access to a sitting Supreme Court justice would encourage wealthy donors to continue giving to the Koch network - organizations that regularly bring cases before the Supreme Court.
This put Thomas in the position of serving as a fundraising draw for a network that has brought cases before the Supreme Court, including some of the most closely watched cases of recent terms. The conflict of interest was severe: a sitting justice was helping raise money for organizations that would argue cases before him.
Thomas never reported the 2018 flight to Palm Springs on his annual financial disclosure form, an apparent violation of federal law requiring justices to report most gifts. Jet charter companies told ProPublica the flights could have cost more than $75,000.
Retired federal judge John E. Jones III stated: "I can't imagine - it takes my breath away, frankly - that he would go to a Koch network event for donors. If I had done so as a district court judge, I'd have gotten a letter that would've commenced a disciplinary proceeding."
The Koch network attendance was part of a broader pattern of Thomas's participation in secretive conservative coordination networks. His wife Ginni Thomas served on the board of CNP Action (the Council for National Policy's 501(c)(4) lobbying arm), and Thomas himself spoke at CNP events, creating an interlocking relationship between the Supreme Court and the conservative movement's primary coordination infrastructure.
This revelation demonstrated how CNP-adjacent networks (including the Koch donor summits) provided venues where Supreme Court justices, billionaire donors, and political operatives coordinated strategy away from public scrutiny - the very definition of institutional capture.