The sleuths over at ProPublica have a big old story out Thursday about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his apparently extensive history of taking fully paid-for luxury vacations with a billionaire Republican donor named Harlan Crow. The story quotes experts who say Thomas appears to have broken the law by failing to disclose the numerous free trips he has taken on Crow’s private jet and yacht.
The story raises major questions, as they say, about corrupt partisan influence over the federal judiciary, as well as about whether “Harlan Crow” is a Batman character who came to life. This post, however, is going to concentrate on a somewhat tangential passage of ProPublica’s piece that shows up about halfway through:
“I don’t have any problem with going to Europe, but I prefer the United States, and I prefer seeing the regular parts of the United States,” Thomas said in a recent interview for a documentary about his life, which Crow helped finance.
“I prefer the RV parks. I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that. There’s something normal to me about it,” Thomas said. “I come from regular stock, and I prefer that — I prefer being around that.”
Thomas’ claims to be a regular ol’ regular guy, vacation-wise, contrast with the list of trips he took at Crow’s expense, including:
• A nine-day yacht trip through an Indonesian archipelago;
• An “extended cruise in New Zealand,” also on the yacht;
• A yacht cruise in the Greek islands (possibly; this one was only implied by Thomas appearing in a photograph wearing a blue polo shirt, of the kind that Crow is known to give to guests on his boat, on which the words “March 2007” and “Greek islands” were printed);
• A visit to the exclusive all-male California retreat called “Bohemian Grove” (a historic gathering place for titans of politics and industry and so forth that has long been of interest to conspiracy theorists); and
• Annual stays at a 105-acre “private lakeside resort” in New York state that features an artificial waterfall, 25 fireplaces, three boathouses, a life-size replica of the Harry Potter character Hagrid’s hut for some reason, and “a 1950s-style soda fountain where Crow’s staff fixes milkshakes.”
We’d also like to point out, though, just how overcompensatory it was for Thomas to specifically say that the parking lot is the part of the Walmart that he prefers to the beach. The parking lot is not even the most appealing part of the Walmart complex! Did he think saying “the actual store” would come off as too fancy, when he was bullshitting this documentary crew about how down-to-earth he likes his vacations to be, before he left for another yacht trip to, I guess, a Harry Potter castle in the south of France?
Incidentally, a new season of Slate’s hit podcast Slow Burn comes out in May and guess who the subject is? Clarence Thomas! Only men are allowed to listen to it, in a grove.
