type: timeline_event The Senate Judiciary Committee voted on November 9, 2023, to issue subpoenas to Harlan Crow and Leonard Leo, demanding documentation about gifts provided to Supreme Court justices after both men refused voluntary cooperation with the Committee's ethics investigation. Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) had spent months attempting to obtain voluntary cooperation from Crow, the Texas real estate developer and Republican megadonor who had given Justice Clarence Thomas undisclosed luxury travel, property transactions, and other gifts valued at potentially millions of dollars. When Crow declined to provide requested records, the Committee voted along party lines to compel production through subpoenas.
The subpoenas sought comprehensive records of gifts, travel, and financial transactions between Crow and Thomas, as well as Leonard Leo's financial relationships with justices. Leo, the co-chairman of the Federalist Society who had played a central role in shaping Trump's Supreme Court nominations, had separately been implicated in payments directed to Ginni Thomas, the Justice's wife. ProPublica's ongoing investigation into Supreme Court ethics had revealed that Leo had directed a consulting firm to make payments to Ginni Thomas while instructing that her name not appear on the documentation.
The subpoenas represented the most aggressive Congressional action on Supreme Court ethics in decades. Republicans on the Committee opposed the subpoenas, arguing they constituted inappropriate Congressional interference with a co-equal branch of government. Crow's legal team challenged the subpoenas, arguing the Committee lacked authority to demand personal financial records. The standoff ultimately proved inconclusive, as the subpoenas did not result in full document production, and the Senate lacked effective enforcement mechanisms against resistant private parties. The controversy nonetheless accelerated bipartisan discussion of whether the Supreme Court needed a binding ethics code, eventually resulting in the Court adopting a voluntary code of conduct in November 2023.