Billionaires buy justice, just as they buy everything else. They live by the business creed that everything and everyone has a price—even presidents, legislators, and Supreme Court justices.
Many have argued that Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas is such a justice—a man who enjoys the perks and payola of power.
Thomas was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1991. By 2000, the justice had made roughly $1.5 million dollars in salary. He was paid $173,600 a year by taxpayers to serve on the Court. The average American salary in 1991 was nearly $21,000. That had increased to almost $31,000 by 2000. So Justice Thomas was making roughly eight times what the average American made during the nine years between 1991 and 2000.
By 2000, the average American carried $4,000 in debt. Justice Thomas, on the other hand, was hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, according to a December 18, 2023 ProPublica report . The average American paid their debt while Justice Thomas, according to ProPublica, whined about his paltry salary that had him drowning in debt. The justice began to let key congressional legislators and conservative billionaires know about his dissatisfaction with that paltry salary and his thoughts of resigning from the Court.
Of course, the prospect of losing a friendly ally on the nation’s highest court sent the conservative political community into a proverbial tizzy. One billionaire friend effectively bought Justice Thomas a prized, top-of-the-line RV for the tidy sum of $267,000. Other billionaire friends remodeled and paid off the mortgage to the justice’s mother’s house, and another paid the expensive private school tuition for a nephew the Thomas’s had raised as a son.
The gift-giving got so good that Justice Thomas suddenly found himself the beneficiary of private jet trips to luxurious, exotic places around the globe and vacations to just about anywhere his justice-serving heart desired. And it was all , courtesies of his billionaire confidants—and since the gifts and benefits came from such respected billionaires, Justice Thomas didn’t feel the need to disclose any of it on his mandatory financial disclosure forms, much less to the IRS where appropriate. ProPublica put it this way:
“… Thomas accepted a stream of gifts from friends and acquaintances that appears to be unparalleled in the modern history of the Supreme Court. Some defrayed living expenses, large and small—private school tuition, vehicle batteries, and tires. Other gifts from a coterie of ultrarich men supplemented his lifestyle, such as international vacations on the private jet and superyacht of Dallas real estate billionaire Harlan Crow.
“Precisely what led to many people to offer Thomas money and other gifts remains an open question. There’s no evidence the justice ever raised the specter of resigning with Crow or his other wealthy benefactors.”
