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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas missed publicly disclosing another jaunt on billionaire and conservative megadonor Harlan Crow's private jet, Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon alleged in a letter on Monday.
According to the letter, Thomas and his wife, Virginia Thomas, took a round-trip flight on Crow's private jet from Hawaii to New Zealand in November of 2010.
Wyden, who is the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, sent the letter to Crow's lawyers as part of an investigation into the ties between the right-wing donor and the Supreme Court justice. In it, he writes that Customs and Border patrol records show evidence of the trip, but that Thomas did not list it on his 2010 financial disclosures.
Justices are legally obligated to fill out financial disclosure forms every year, which include any external sources of income and gifts.
Thomas had amended some of his disclosure documents to include travel on Crow's jet after ProPublica revealed the lavish gifts and vacations Thomas received.
But Thomas made no such edits to his 2010 disclosures, the New York Times reported. In the past, Thomas has said that he doesn't think he needs to disclose gifts from friends who don't have business before the court.
At the end of his letter, Wyden requests a "detailed list of all flights Justice Clarence has taken on any private jets under Mr. Crow's ownership or control." Under that, he enumerates 19 known flights between 2010 and 2022, starting with the newly discovered trip from Hawaii to New Zealand.
The letter is part of a congressional investigation into whether Crow is improperly listing the gifts on his tax records. In a statement, Crow's lawyers said that the senator's allegations "have no legal basis and are only intended to harass a private citizen."
When Thomas does list travel from Crow, he calls them "personal hospitality." The Senate committee, Wyden said, is seeking evidence that Crow has not listed the trips as business expenses and received tax deductions as a result.
Neither Thomas nor Wyden immediately responded to Business Insider's request for comment.
Supreme Court ethics have been under scrutiny for some time, and the new revelations come just after President Biden proposed sweeping changes at the court, including a binding code of conduct.
Though Biden's proposals are unlikely to get Republican support, they keep the spotlight on an increasingly unpopular high court and on Thomas in particular, whose many trips with Crow sparked much of the outrage.
