Sitting on the Supreme Court—it’s good work if you can get it. Justices enjoy a lifetime appointment, extraordinary influence over the lives of their fellow Americans, and little to no formal oversight. But if you’re Clarence Thomas, the gig apparently comes with additional perks: lavish vacations, access to private jets and super-yachts, and other pricey gifts, all courtesy of a billionaire and GOP mega-donor. 

According to ProPublica, the conservative justice has for decades accepted luxury vacations and other gifts from Harlan Crow, the Dallas real estate developer who has helped found the anti-tax conservative Club for Growth organization, poured millions into GOP campaigns, and provided the initial $500,000 donation to the lobbying outfit founded by the justice’s wife, Ginni Thomas. The vacations have included a week and a half of island-hopping in Indonesia on Crow’s super-yacht, an excursion that would have otherwise cost the Thomases upward of $500,000; trips to the all-male California retreat Bohemian Grove, where Crow is a member; and visits to Crow’s Texas ranch. Every summer, ProPublica reports, Thomas also spends a week at Crow’s private Adirondacks resort—hobnobbing with various corporate executives, lobbyists, and Federalist Society leader Leonard Leo, in accommodations that include a full-scale mock-up of Hagrid’s hut from Harry Potter. 

As you might expect, Thomas did not report any of the vacations, private travel, or gifts on financial disclosures, in what appears to be clear, if brazen, violation of ethics laws.

“It’s incomprehensible to me that someone would do this,” retired federal judge Nancy Gertner told ProPublica. “When a justice’s lifestyle is being subsidized by the rich and famous, it absolutely corrodes public trust,” former government ethics lawyer Virginia Canter echoed, warning that Thomas “seems to have completely disregarded his higher ethical obligations.”

Lest we forget, Thomas has already shown, time and again, exactly what he thinks of those ethical obligations. After all, this is the justice who refused to recuse himself from cases related to the 2020 election, despite his wife supporting—and encouraging—Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn that year’s election results. But the lifestyle that Thomas' friendship with Crow has afforded him shine an even more glaring light on his indifference to the principles of judicial integrity and independence—and underscore the need for real accountability on the nation’s high court, a lack of which has called the court's legitimacy into question.

The Supreme Court's conservatives have steadfastly resisted such calls, lamenting the public's deteriorating trust while refusing to do anything to earn it. “All of our opinions are open to criticism,” Chief Justice John Roberts said last year, amid public outcry over its disastrous Dobbs decision—an activist ruling if there ever was one. “But simply because people disagree with an opinion is not a basis for criticizing the legitimacy of the court.”

Roberts, of course, was arguing with a straw man. Public trust hasn’t cratered because people “disagree” with one opinion. It has plummeted because its right-wing majority—strong-armed into existence by Mitch McConnell and the Republicans—has abandoned the pretense that it is much more than the enforcement arm of the GOP. The conservatives have run roughshod over precedent; reverse-engineered their legal rationales for seemingly ideological decisions; and, in the case of Dobbs’ author Samuel Alito, openly mocked critics.

As for Thomas, neither he nor the Supreme Court appear to have responded to the ProPublica report Thursday. But Crow, for his part, defended his “dear” friendship with the justice in a lengthy statement to the outlet. “We have never asked about a pending or lower court case, and Justice Thomas has never discussed one, and we have never sought to influence Justice Thomas on any legal or political issue,” Crow said. “More generally, I am unaware of any of our friends ever lobbying or seeking to influence Justice Thomas on any case, and I would never invite anyone who I believe had any intention of doing that.”

“These are gatherings of friends,” Crow added.

As always, we’re just supposed to take their word for it—but we shouldn’t. “This degree of corruption is shocking—almost cartoonish,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote Thursday, renewing her call to impeach Thomas. “The revelation that Justice Thomas has been receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in undisclosed gifts from a Texan billionaire over many years is more than troubling,” Representative Gerry Connolly added. “It is disqualifying.”