type: timeline_event On April 6, 2023, ProPublica published a landmark investigative report revealing that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had accepted luxury travel, gifts, and other undisclosed benefits from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow for over two decades. The investigation documented yacht trips on Crow's superyacht the Michaela Rose, private jet travel, and stays at exclusive resorts—none of which Thomas had disclosed on mandatory federal financial disclosure forms. ProPublica estimated the value of the undisclosed benefits at hundreds of thousands, and potentially millions, of dollars.
Thomas initially claimed that the gifts qualified as "personal hospitality" from a close friend and therefore did not require disclosure under existing Supreme Court guidelines. He subsequently acknowledged that he had failed to properly report the gifts and attributed the failure to guidance he had received. Harlan Crow, a Dallas real estate developer, had not appeared before the Supreme Court directly, but had financial stakes in numerous cases touching on tax law, business regulation, and other matters the Court adjudicated. Crow also funded organizations involved in the Federalist Society network that had supported Thomas's appointment and conservative legal causes generally.
The revelation triggered a broader ethics crisis for the Supreme Court, which lacked a binding code of conduct that applied to justices—a gap that distinguished it from all other federal judges who are subject to the Code of Conduct for United States Judges. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin opened an investigation and sought testimony from Thomas and Crow. The report, which would be followed by additional ProPublica investigations documenting property transactions, tutoring payments for Thomas's grandnephew, and participation in Koch Network donor events, became the most significant judicial ethics scandal in decades and generated sustained calls for Supreme Court ethics reform.