Durbin: ‘Tangled web’ around Clarence Thomas ‘just gets worse’

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Sunday said the “tangled web” around Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who is facing criticism over his financial disclosures, “just gets worse.” 

“This tangled web around Justice Clarence Thomas just gets worse and worse by the day. I don’t know what’s going to come up next. I thought I’d heard it all, but more disclosures about his activities — it just embarrasses me,” Durbin said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” 

Thomas has come under scrutiny after reporting from ProPublica revealed that Texas billionaire Harlan Crow paid for Thomas to take part in various luxury vacations without the justice reporting them. Thomas said later that he was “advised” that he did not need to disclose the trips. 

A subsequent ProPublica report determined that Thomas had also not disclosed a 2014 real estate deal he’d made with the same Republican megadonor. 

A third ProPublica report found that Crow paid thousands of dollars in tuition to a private boarding school for Thomas’s great-nephew. Federal ethics laws only require the justices to report gifts given to a “dependent child,” but the series of revelations together has raised concern about Thomas and upped scrutiny on the court overall. 

“The question is whether it embarrasses the Supreme Court and the chief justice,” Durbin said on Sunday, adding that Chief Justice John Roberts “has the power in his hands” to make ethics reforms on the nation’s highest court.

Durbin said last week that his reaction to the latest ProPublica findings was a “combination of sadness and rage.” The Senate Judiciary Committee, which Durbin chairs, held a hearing last week on ethics reforms for the court.