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Clarence Thomas took 3 undisclosed trips on private jet provided by GOP megadonor, committee says
Washington — Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas took three undisclosed trips aboard a private jet provided by Republican megadonor Harlan Crow between 2017 and 2021, according to documents obtained by the Senate Judiciary Committee and released Thursday.
The records, which Crow turned over to the committee, show that Thomas traveled aboard Crow’s private jet in May 2017 on a flight from St. Louis, Missouri, to Kalispell, Montana, with a return flight to Dallas two days later.
The second newly revealed trip on the plane took place in March 2019, from Washington, D.C., to Savannah, Georgia, and back. The third, in June 2021, included roundtrip flights between Washington and San Jose, California.
The committee said the documents were obtained as a result of its vote to authorize a subpoena for Crow in November. In addition to Crow, the panel’s Democrats voted to subpoena to conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo, who refused to comply with their demand for information. Crow’s office said in April he had not received a subpoena from the committee.
A release from the committee noted that Thomas did not include the private jet travel in his most recent financial disclosure statement, which was released last week.
Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images
“Nearly $4.2 million in gifts and even that wasn’t enough for Justice Thomas, with at least three additional trips the Committee found that he has failed to disclose to date,” Judiciary Committee chairman Dick Durbin said in a statement. “The Senate Judiciary Committee’s ongoing investigation into the Supreme Court’s ethical crisis is producing new information — like what we’ve revealed today — and makes it crystal clear that the highest court needs an enforceable code of conduct, because its members continue to choose not to meet the moment.”
Crow’s office said in a statement that he reached an agreement with the panel to turn over information going back seven years in response to Democrats’ requests for lists of travel, gifts, lodging or other transactions he provided to any member of the Supreme Court.
“Despite his serious and continued concerns about the legality and necessity of the inquiry, Mr. Crow engaged in good faith negotiations with the Committee from the beginning to resolve the matter,” Crow’s office said. “As a condition of this agreement, the Committee agreed to end its probe with respect to Mr. Crow.”
Durbin said the documents also showed travel aboard Crow’s private jet for a trip to Indonesia in July 2019, an eight-day “yacht excursion” for that vacation and private jet travel for a July 2019 trip to Santa Rosa, California.
The two trips in July 2019, to Indonesia and California, were reported by Thomas in an amendment to his 2019 financial disclosure form, which was included in his latest disclosure last week. Thomas reported receiving food and lodging at a private club and hotel. He did not include the trips aboard the private plane or yacht. His report said the lodging information was “inadvertently omitted” from his original filing.
Durbin also said the dates of the Indonesia trip reported by Thomas differ from those listed in documents Crow provided.
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McDonald’s investing $100 million to lure customers back to the fast food giant after E. coli outbreak
McDonald’s is investing $100 million to bring customers back to stores after an outbreak of E. coli food poisoning tied to onions on the fast-food giant’s Quarter Pounder hamburgers.
The investments include $65 million that will go directly to the hardest-hit franchises, the company said.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that slivered onions on the Quarter Pounders were the likely source of the E. coli. Taylor Farms in California recalled onions potentially linked to the outbreak.
The E. coli outbreak has sickened 104 people in 14 states, federal health officials said in an update on Wednesday.
At least 34 people have been hospitalized, and four developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a serious condition that can cause kidney failure. An 88-year-old man who resided in Grand Junction, Colorado, died, as previously reported. The illnesses began at the end of September, and the most recent onset of illness occurred as of Oct. 21, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The Food and Drug Administration has said that “there does not appear to be a continued food safety concern related to this outbreak at McDonald’s restaurants.”
However, the outbreak hurt the company’s sales.
Quarter Pounders were removed from menus in several states in the early days of the outbreak.
In a statement Wednesday obtained by CBS News, McDonald’s said it had found an “alternate supplier” for the approximately 900 restaurants that had temporarily stopped serving Quarter Pounders with slivered onions.
“Over the past week, these restaurants resumed the sale of Quarter Pounder burgers with slivered onions,” McDonald’s said.
CBS News reached out to McDonald’s on Saturday for a statement regarding the reported investment.
Health officials said Saturday they have confirmed the first U.S. case of a new form of mpox that was first seen in eastern Congo.
The person had traveled to eastern Africa and was treated in Northern California upon return, according to the California Department of Public Health. Symptoms are improving and the risk to the public is low.
Mpox is a rare disease caused by infection with a virus that’s in the same family as the one that causes smallpox. It is endemic in parts of Africa, where people have been infected through bites from rodents or small animals.
Earlier this year, scientists reported the emergence of a new form of mpox in Africa that was spread through close contact including through sex.
More than 3,100 confirmed cases have been reported just since late September, according to the World Health Organization. The vast majority of them have been in three African countries – Burundi, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Since then, cases of travelers with the new mpox form have been reported in Germany, India, Kenya, Sweden, Thailand, Zimbabwe, and the United Kingdom.
Health officials earlier this month said the situation in Congo appears to be stabilizing. The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated Congo needs at least 3 million mpox vaccines to stop the spread, and another 7 million vaccines for the rest of Africa.
The current outbreak is different from the 2022 global outbreak of mpox where gay and bisexual men made up the vast majority of cases.
