2LT International News

WASHINGTON, D.C.: Following revelations that conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had not disclosed luxury trips paid for by a benefactor, U.S. Supreme Court justices and federal judges must now disclose the value of travel-related gifts they receive by classifying such free trips as “reimbursements” on their financial disclosure forms.

The new regulations were announced by the federal judiciary late on March 15.

In August, Thomas filed a delayed 2022 financial disclosure report listing private jet flights paid for by Texas businessman Harlan Crow to or from Dallas for conferences in February and May of that year and to a property in upstate New York’s Adirondack Mountains last July.

As the value of gifts must be disclosed, he listed the flight to the Adirondacks by private plane, as well as related lodging, food, and entertainment, as “reimbursements” and not as a “gift” from Crow.

Citing advice from the staff of the U.S. Judicial Conference’s Financial Disclosure Committee, which oversees judicial disclosure policies, Thomas said his disclosure was “consistent with previous filings by other filers.”

His supporters also mentioned liberal former Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who made similar trips listed as “reimbursements” trips whose value went undisclosed.

In a column published in September by Slate, Steven Lubet, emeritus professor at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law, said the trip taken by Thomas should have been listed as a gift with a disclosed value.

“Vacations as guests are gifts, and gifts require the disclosure of the value,” Lubet said.

The new policy, which the federal judiciary’s Financial Disclosure Committee approved in January, came into force on March 13.