Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is facing more questions about his finances with a new report on Sunday about thousands of dollars of income he’s reporting from a real estate firm with ties to his wife Ginni Thomas.
And that firm no longer exists, having been closed 17 years ago
Thomas, on his financial disclosure forms, reported rental income totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars from a firm called Ginger, Ltd., Partnership, The Washington Post reported.
But that Nebraska-based real estate firm, which was started in the 1980s, hasn’t existed since 2006.
The latest revelation about problems with Thomas legally-required financial disclosure forms raises questions about how seriously he took his obligation to disclosure his finances to the public.
Public officials are required to fill out such forms to show if they have any conflict of interests between their personal finances and public duties. Thomas is facing calls for an investigation and his resignation.
The latest questions about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ financial disclosure form is tied to his wife Ginni Thomas – above the couple at the 2019 White House state dinner
The Washington Post report on Sunday also detailed how Thomas has had errors on his forms for years, many of them tied to his controversial wife Ginni, who became a nationally-known figure in the aftermath of the 2020 election when reports revealed her emails to Arizona officials who were questioning Joe Biden’s victory in that state.
The latest problems for Clarence Thomas are tied to this real estate firm that shut down in 2006.
After it closed, a new firm Ginger Holdings, LLC, which is managed by Ginni Thomas sister, took over the holdings.
But Thomas has reported income from the defunct company – between $50,000 and $100,000 annually in recent years – with no mention of the new firm.
It could be a simple paperwork error.
But the Supreme Court justice has faced questions about his finances since ProPublic revealed he and his wife Ginny accepted lavish, luxury vacations from Dallas-based Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow that Thomas didn’t publicly disclose, despite being legally required to do so.
Thomas said he didn’t disclose them because the trips were from a friend and he had been assured ‘personal hospitality’ from close friends was allowable.
But the watchdog group CREW has filed civil and criminal complaints against him in the matter and Senate Democrats have demanded Chief Justice John Roberts investigate the gifts from Crow.
Some Democrats have called on the high court to adopt a formal code of ethics – it is currently the only court in the federal judiciary that does not have one for its nine members.
Some have even called on the 74-year-old Thomas to resign. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib have called for his impeachment.
The justice didn’t respond to The Washington Post‘s inquiries on the real estate income.
Elliott told the newspaper they could ask her sister Ginni about the matter.
‘You could call her and she could answer anything that she wants you to know,’ Elliott said before she hung up on the news outlet.
Clarence Thomas described receiving $270,000 to $750,000 from the Nebraska firm since 2006, calling it ‘rent.’ His salary as a justice this year is $285,000.
The income is tied to investments made by Ginni Thomas’s late parents. Ginni Thomas is from Omaha.
Ginni Thomas’ income has been an issue in the past on her husband’s disclosure forms
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is facing calls for his resignation
Ginni Thomas isn’t mentioned in state incorporation records establishing the new firm.
But her income has been an issue for Thomas in the past.
In the 2000s he failed to disclose his wife’s employment as required by law until the watchdog group Common Cause reported the omission.
Ginni Thomas earned more than $686,000 from the conservative Heritage Foundation from 2003 until 2007 but he checked a box labeled ‘none’ for his wife’s income during that period.
He did the same in 2008 and 2009 when she worked for conservative Hillsdale College.
He admitted to the error in 2011 when he amended his filings, saying the information ‘inadvertently omitted due to a misunderstanding of the filing instructions.’
Ginni Thomas is an attorney and longtime conservative activist.
She was an ardent supporter of Donald Trump. In the aftermath of the 2020 election, when Trump falsely claimed it had been stolen from him, her email correspondence between with Trump’s election attorney John Eastman – who supported the legal theory that claimed then-Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to overturn states’ election results – came to light.
Clarance Thomas also faces questions about gifts from billionaire Republican donor Harlan
Subsequent evidence emerged that Thomas encouraged state lawmakers in Arizona and Wisconsin to overturn the presidential election results.
She was called to testify in front of the panel investigating the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol.
And many critics called on Justice Thomas to recuse himself from any election-related cases that came before the Supreme Court.
Ginni Thomas told the January 6th committee that she stays in the ‘political’ lane at home and her husband stays in a ‘legal’ lane.
‘He’s uninterested in politics,’ she said. ‘I did not speak with him at all about the details of my post-election activities, which were minimal.’
