The Thursday evening, PBS NewsHour showcased the latest attack on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas with a two-pronged attack, hosting Joel Anderson of the Slate podcast "Slow Burn" and Brett Murphy from ProPublica to talk about that outlet’s latest glossy attack on the conservative Supreme Court justice.
Using ProPublica’s obsessive Thomas "scoops" as ammunition, PBS has been training fire on Justice Clarence Thomas while hosting several ProPublica reporters to talk about the supposed scandal of Thomas’s undisclosed vacations and trips sponsored by Republican donors, ever since ProPublica broke a story in April about Thomas’s vacations with real estate magnate Harlan Crow. (Liberal justices took vacations with rich friends too, but those were officially disclosed, which apparently gets them off the hook for any potential conflict of interest.)
John Yang: Today, ProPublica provided the fullest account yet of the gifts Justice Thomas has gotten from wealthy and well-connected people, and there are far more than previously known. Brett Murphy is one of the ProPublica reporters who unearthed these details, and Joel Anderson is host of Slate's "Slow Burn" podcast, whose current season is "Becoming Justice Thomas." Brett, I want to start with you. Who are these benefactors, these new benefactors that you uncovered? And what sorts of things did they give him?
Murphy of ProPublica ran down “three new titans of industry” who have gifted Thomas: Oil man Tony Novelly, business executive David Sokol, and the late Wayne Huizenga, behind Blockbuster and AutoNation.
Yang: Did he report any of this?
Murphy: He did not. And that's what the ethics experts told us is the big concern here, because he was bound, as all justices are, to disclose most gifts….
While Murphy admitted liberal justices had also accepted vacations from benefactors, “we know about those because they disclosed them. And that's the important distinction, that they were on their disclosures...”
The segment reached beyond Thomas’s undisclosed vacations into psychoanalysis. Thomas has been long loathed by the left for failing to knuckle under after the Anita Hill accusations during his confirmation hearings.
John Yang: Joel, you have done a deep dive into Justice Thomas's life and his personality. How do these lavish trips compare with the image that he tries to project in his speeches and interviews?
Joel Anderson of the Slate podcast (a whole series on Thomas alone!) let his hostility show, denigrating Thomas’s origin story.
Anderson: Well, yes, for a man who understandably prides himself on his bootstraps origin story, it's not surprising that he elides the truth about these wealthy white Republican benefactors and what they have been doing for him for the last 30 years or so. When he first became a national name, when -- during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing in 1991, his aides and the people that supported him tried to promote the Pin Point myth, which is his impoverished background growing up on the coast of Georgia, just outside of Savannah. And that's part of the truth, but that's not all of it. He actually grew up fairly middle class and went to private school throughout….
Later, Yang asked Anderson about Thomas’s motivations, including, “He says in speeches, he never wanted to be a federal judge. What he wanted was to be rich.”
Anderson noted Thomas’s anger over his confirmation treatment, then pivoted.
Anderson: ….And, also, he's always wanted to get paid….A friend that once visited him around that time noticed that he had taken down an old Malcolm X poster in his house and put up a picture of a Rolls-Royce. So this is a guy who was motivated by money….So he's motivated about money and power, as well as all those other things.
This segment was brought to you in part by Cunard.
A transcript is available, click “Expand” to read:
PBS NewsHour
August 10, 2023
7:30:24 p.m. (ET)Amna Nawaz: There were more disclosures today about the gifts Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has received from wealthy businessmen.
John Yang has the details.
John Yang: Amna, today, ProPublica provided the fullest account yet of the gifts Justice Thomas has gotten from wealthy and well-connected people, and there are far more than previously known.
Brett Murphy is one of the ProPublica reporters who unearthed these details, and Joel Anderson is host of Slate's "Slow Burn" podcast, whose current season is "Becoming Justice Thomas."
Brett, I want to start with you.
Who are these benefactors, these new benefactors that you uncovered? And what sorts of things did they give him?
Brett Murphy, ProPublica: Sol, these are three new titans of industry.
There's Tony Novelly, who's an oil baron from St. Louis, David Sokol, the former heir apparent of Berkshire Hathaway, and Wayne Huizenga, who is the man behind Blockbuster, AutoNation, and Waste Management.
For about three decades, as you said, they have given him a — sort of a laundry list of vacations. We have found in our reporting there's at least 38 destination vacations in there, something to the order of two dozen or so private jet flights, handful more of helicopter rides, tickets to sporting events in the skybox, resort stays, standing invitation to an exclusive golf club.
And that's just sort of what we know at this point.
John Yang: Did he report any of this?
Brett Murphy: He did not. And that's what the ethics experts told us is the big concern here, because he was bound, as all justices are, to disclose most gifts.
And these, the ones we have reported on, many of the ones we have reported on, would not be falling into the personal hospitality exemption that some of your viewers may have heard about before. Things like private plane rides, yacht cruises, expensive sports tickets, that's not personal — personal hospitality, according to the folks we talked to.
John Yang: There is so much focus right now on the justices' activities outside of the court, court building.
Earlier this year, there were questions raised about Justice Sonia Sotomayor apparently prodding schools and libraries where she spoke to buy her book. How does what Justice Thomas did compare with his colleagues.
Brett Murphy: So, we have been actively pursuing all the credible leads and tips on all the justices. We continue to report on all of them.
So far, what we know right now is that Justice Thomas is an extreme outlier. We brought the reporting to former federal judges, including those who sat on the judicial committee that reviews disclosures. And Jeremy Fogel told us that he has never seen anything like this before. He thought it was unprecedented for both the volume and the frequency of the largess.
These are not one-off vacations. This is consistent, steady stream of luxury vacations that Justice Thomas has received. And the other justices who you may have heard about, like Justice Breyer, Justice Ginsburg, accepting vacations from benefactors, we know about those because they disclosed them.
And that's the important distinction, that they were on their disclosures. We're going to continue to look at all the justices for the same type of evidence, but, right now, Justice Thomas is the extreme outlier.
John Yang: Joel, you have done a deep dive into Justice Thomas' life and his personality.
How do these lavish trips compare with the image that he tries to project in his speeches and interviews?
Joel Anderson, Slate: Well, yes, for a man who understandably prides himself on his bootstraps origin story, it's not surprising that he elides the truth about these wealthy white Republican benefactors and what they have been doing for him for the last 30 years or so.
When he first became a national name, when — during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing in 1991, his aides and the people that supported him tried to promote the Pin Point myth, which is his impoverished background growing up on the coast of Georgia, just outside of Savannah.
And that's part of the truth, but that's not all of it. He actually grew up fairly middle class and went to private school throughout. That's not something that is well-known nationally is that story.
So it's always the sort of thing that he's not really — he wants people to believe that he is — quote — "regular stock." That's something that you will hear him say a lot, but it's a little bit more complicated than that.
John Yang: As you say, he likes to talk about is up-from-the-bootstraps life.
But in the affirmative action case earlier, he said that he thinks affirmative action actually hurts minorities. How does that fit in with what you just talked about?
Joel Anderson: Well, I mean, in some ways, it makes sense.
I think that Justice Thomas, understandably, is very proud of how far he's come, right, that he had to work very hard to become the second Black justice in the history of the Supreme Court. But that's not all of the story.
The first person that hired him out of out of college was an heir to the Purina fortune, Missouri Attorney General John Danforth, who later became senator. When he applied to Yale Law School in 1971, and was admitted, that was the first year they had an explicit — explicit racial quota system. When he got to Holy Cross, that was the first year that they had ever recruited a substantial number of Black students.
And he's instead said, this would — this maligned to me, this ruined my reputation among people that would have hired me and thought — would have thought that I was capable.
And so he's always sort of — sort of had to deal with that contradiction in a way.
John Yang: This is a man who once wanted to be a priest. He went to seminary. He says in speeches, he never wanted to be a federal judge. What he wanted was to be rich.
You have talked to a lot of people in his life. What motivates him? What drives him?
Joel Anderson: Well, there's a lot of things. That's a really complicated and really — it's a really smart question.
One, he was raised by his grandfather, who grew up in Jim Crow Georgia, really pushed him to excel in spite of the circumstances. That's one piece of it. Another is that he has really never recovered from what he went through in the 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearing, that that has sort of unleashed a lot of anger that he's never really gotten over.
And if you read his autobiography, you will be sort of surprised at the amount of anger that is in those pages. And, also, he's always wanted to get paid. Like, he talked about it when he worked at Monsanto in the '70s. That was a big thing. A friend that once visited him around that time noticed that he had taken down an old Malcolm X poster in his house and put up a picture of a Rolls-Royce.
So this is a guy who was motivated by money. And also, I should note, when he worked — when he started working in the Reagan administration, he wrote a memorandum for the — for Missouri Senator Danforth. It said: "We have power. Now what?"
So he's motivated about money and power, as well as all those other things.
John Yang: Joel Anderson of Slate's podcast "Slow Burn," Brett Murphy from ProPublica, thank you both very much.
