This article includes reporting by JURIST’s Alumni Engagement Coordinator Sean Nolan

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden has escalated his investigation into billionaire Harlan Crow’s tax treatment of luxury trips provided to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, according to a letter sent to Crow’s attorney on Monday.

In the letter, Wyden, a Democratic Senator from Oregon, expressed concern that Crow may have improperly benefitted from business-expense tax deductions for lavish gifts, including luxury travel:

I am deeply concerned that Mr. Crow may have been showering a public official with extravagant gifts, then writing off those gifts to lower his tax bill. This concern is only heightened by the Committee’s recent discovery of additional undisclosed international travel on Mr. Crow’s private jet by Justice Thomas. As I consider legislative solutions to curb potentially abusive deductions, I am offering you one final opportunity to address the tax treatment of yacht and jet trips involving Justice Thomas.

Last month, Wyden joined fellow Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse — Chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts — in asking US Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel to investigate possible ethics and tax violations connected with a spate of high-end gifts Thomas had previously failed to disclose. According to that letter, these gifts included multiple free trips on a private jet, yacht travel, lodging, tuition payments for a family member of Thomas, and real estate transactions.

The senators wrote at the time:

We do not make this request lightly. The evidence assembled thus far plainly suggests that Justice Thomas has committed numerous willful violations of federal ethics and false-statement laws and raises significant questions about whether he and his wealthy benefactors have complied with their federal tax obligations. Presented with opportunities to resolve questions about his conduct, Justice Thomas has maintained a suspicious silence.

Justice Thomas’ trips with Crow were first revealed in a ProPublica report that alleged Thomas had failed to disclose numerous gifts from Crow and others including vacations, flights on private jets, tuition payments for his great nephew’s education, and loan forgiveness. The report ignited a firestorm over judicial independence and the ties between wealthy elites and the nation’s highest court.

In August, Justice Thomas disclosed three vacations that he accepted from Crow in 2022, and in September news broke that Thomas had secretly attended donor events for a libertarian political organization founded by the billionaire Koch brothers. Despite the appearances, Justice Thomas has described himself as preferring “RV parks” and “the Walmart parking lots … [rather than] the beaches.”

Amid record low public confidence in the judiciary, Congress has attempted to advance an ethics reform bill for the Supreme Court, and the court adopted a new ethics code last November.

Last week, US President Joe Biden called for sweeping reforms of the Supreme Court. These reforms would include the imposition of term limits and the establishment of a code of ethics.