Clarence Thomas ‘Defunct Real Estate Firm’ Controversy

On April 16 2023, a Twitter screenshot was shared to r/WhitePeopleTwitter, claiming that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas claimed income from “a defunct real estate firm” for almost two decades:

At the top of the comment thread, one Reddit account lamented poorly-resourced newsrooms and the disappearance of local and independent news, remarking:

Fact Check

Claim: A Washington Post investigation indicated that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas “has claimed income from a defunct real estate firm for almost two decades.”

Description: The claim states that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been claiming income from a defunct real estate firm for almost two decades. These allegations emerged after reports of Thomas’ financial relationship with Harlan Crow.

Rating:

Rating Explanation: This claim is supported by an investigation that showed Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas claimed income from a defunct real estate firm for nearly two decades, which was published by the Washington Post on April 16, 2023.

This is why you fucking help fund independent media. You donate what you can. Because we should have known about this a long time ago. And we should know this kind of info on all our public leaders. But we don’t. Because we don’t have enough journalists with budgets to enable them, the time and resources to dig for it.

It was submitted with the title “Resign!”, and the tweet referenced “more trouble” for Thomas. “More trouble” alluded to an April 2023 ProPublica investigation that uncovered undisclosed financial links between Thomas and “GOP megadonor” (and Nazi memorabilia collector) Harlan Crow:

Initial allegations involving Thomas and Harlan Crow remained in the news in April 2023, prompting a New York Times editorial titled “Clarence Thomas Is as Free as Ever to Treat His Seat Like a Winning Lottery Ticket.” It read in part:

For more than 20 years, according to an investigation by ProPublica, Justice Thomas received lavish and expensive gifts — including luxury trips to private resorts — from Harlan Crow, a Texas billionaire and real estate developer with a long record of extensive support for Republican politicians, conservative media and the Federalist Society.

Under a federal law passed after Watergate, it appears that Thomas was supposed to disclose these gifts and trips to the government. He hasn’t. Instead, Thomas has lived a lavish life on the largess of his rich confidant while posing, in public, as the most humble and unassuming of the justices. In return, Crow has gotten direct access to one of the most influential and powerful men in America.

Not a bad trade.

If Thomas were an ordinary federal judge, this conduct would be an obvious — and flagrant — violation of the judiciary’s code of ethics. But that code doesn’t actually bind the nine members of the Supreme Court. For them, it is mere guidance.

The Reddit post referenced showed part of a lengthy April 16 2023 tweet from the account @CalltoActivism:

A photograph of Thomas was included alongside the tweet’s text, but no links were provided. It claimed:

MORE TROUBLE FOR CLARENCE THOMAS.

JUST IN: Clarence Thomas has claimed income from a defunct real estate firm for almost two decades.

The company — a Nebraska real estate firm launched in the 1980s by his wife and her relatives — has not existed since 2006.

The company was replaced by Ginger Holdings, LLC, though Thomas has continued to report between $50,000 and $100,000 annually from the defunct company on his financial disclosure forms.

Along with other errors and omissions over the years, this prompts concerns about his accuracy in reporting his finances to the public. This should be the LAST straw.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

A FULL investigation into his finances must happen and Clarence Thomas should be held accountable. Otherwise our laws or respect for the court means nothing.

IMPEACH CLARENCE THOMAS!

@CalltoActivism’s tweet was viewed over three million times. A similar tweet from author Keith Boykin made similar claims. However, Boykin included a link to a Washington Post article:

On April 16 2023, the Washington Post published “Clarence Thomas has for years claimed income from a defunct real estate firm.” That reporting was behind a soft paywall, limiting public access.

It attributed the claim to the paper’s firsthand review of documents, reporting:

Over the last two decades, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has reported on required financial disclosure forms that his family received rental income totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars from a firm called Ginger, Ltd., Partnership.

But that company — a Nebraska real estate firm launched in the 1980s by his wife and her relatives — has not existed since 2006.

That year, the family real estate company was shut down and a separate firm was created, state incorporation records show. The similarly named firm assumed control of the shuttered company’s land leasing business, according to property records.

Since that time, however, Thomas has continued to report income from the defunct company — between $50,000 and $100,000 annually in recent years — and there is no mention of the newer firm, Ginger Holdings, LLC, on the forms.

Immediately thereafter, it reported that the “previously unreported misstatement might be dismissed as a paperwork error … among a series of errors and omissions that Thomas has made on required annual financial disclosure forms over the past several decades.”

That particular element of the article led to Twitter discourse over whether the findings were of concern. An exchange between two accounts summarized the debate:

“Wait, he was reporting income and ostensibly paying tax on it? And you’re saying it didn’t exist? I’m failing to see the crime here. Overpaying taxes maybe.”

“Is this the part we pretend that when you pay taxes on something that doesn’t exist it’s usually to account for the increase in income.. how do you not see the issue? That means you got paid more money for something and needed a reason to account for it with the IRS[.]”

On April 16 2023, several popular social media posts featured claims that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas “claimed income from a defunct real estate firm for almost two decades,” not long after Thomas’ financial relationship with Harlan Crow was first reported by ProPublica. Two of the most popular posts did not include a source for the claims. On that date, the Washington Post published an article about the income based on the publication’s firsthand access to documents in support of the claim. The Washington Post‘s limited access to readers without subscriptions further affected public understanding of the report — an information vacuum which was immediately leveraged by disinformation purveyors.