We are new this morning learning new details about Clarence Thomas. Is the Supreme Court justice his life off the Supreme Court bench? This morning, ProPublica broke a new report detailing lavish vacations, private jet trips and VIP treatment at sporting events, all funded by several billionaire friends. Let's bring in our colleague Tom Foreman, to explain. Morning, Tom. Good morning. You know, public support in the polls for the Supreme Court has really been dropping faith in the court. People just are not convinced it's operating the way it ought to. And this report will not help the most complete accounting yet of the high life of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas shows much, much more than previously known. More private jets, more fancy vacations, more sporting events, all gifts from mega-rich businessmen and documented through public and private records, plus interviews by ProPublica. Justice Thomas has been living a life of extreme luxury for 30 years. Underwritten by at least four different ultra wealthy benefactors. Earlier reports have revealed lavish gifts to Thomas, including a house for his mother and his nine day vacation in Indonesia from conservative billionaire Harlan Crowe. I'd come from regular stock who also underwrote a film about Thomas's humble taste. I prefer the RV parks. Now the list of benefactors includes three more names, according to ProPublica. David Sokol Wayne Huizenga and Tony Novelli. The report says the four moguls collectively treated Thomas to 38 destination vacations, including a previously unreported voyage on a yacht around the Bahamas. 26 private jet flights, plus an additional eight by helicopter, a dozen VIP passes to professional and college sporting events. Stays at luxury resorts in Florida and Jamaica. And one standing invitation to an uber exclusive golf club. The dollar value, likely in the millions, little of which appeared in required financial disclosures, according to ProPublica. Thomas has previously said he didn't feel the need to disclose some gifts. And that worries Jeremy Fogel, an expert on judicial ethics and a former judge. I simply couldn't have done this in Even if the people involved didn't have interests before the court. It's it's just the the idea that you are receiving gifts of this magnitude. Associate justices make about $285,000 a year in 2001 when they made about a hundred thousand less. Thomas woke up. The job is not worth doing for what they paid. It's not worth doing for the grief, but it is worth doing for the principal. Now, he bristles at questions about his principles. He calls Crowe merely a friend. Crowe says they never talk about Thomas's work and the new report found none of these wealthy pals seem to have had cases before the court. Still, which one of these new benefactors just like Harlan Crowe, came into his life after he was appointed to the Supreme Court? That's why it's so problematic from an ethics standpoint. Pointed out Wayne Huizenga died about five years ago. So this has been going on for quite a long time. There's no evidence that these rich friends broke any rules or laws in giving these gifts. And it is not entirely clear technically, if Clarence Thomas broke any rules by accepting them right now. But what has happened here, the earlier revelations really raised a public furor over the idea that there should be strict and clear rules about what the Supreme Court justices can and can't accept. And no doubt that drumbeat is going to get a lot louder now. Tom Foreman, thank you. Certainly, as are joining us at the table now is one of the ProPublica reporters behind this investigation, Brett Murphy. Also with us, CNN senior legal analyst Leigh Hoenig and CNN political analyst and national politics reporter for The New York Times, Astead Herndon. Let me start with you. This is more than, of course, what we learned earlier this year. This relationship with Harlan Crow, that was, I guess it some could have said, an uncomfortable or inappropriate relationship with one person. 38 vacations 26 private jet flights in the sporting events. This seems like a lifestyle. Yeah. For about 30 years now, this has been consistent, steady access to things most people will never know. Private jet flights, yacht vacations, luxury suites and sporting events year in and year out. Time and again. And when you say most people will never know. You write for ProPublica that this is almost certainly an undercount. That's right. Yeah. We're still reporting. And there's there's evidence that there may be many more. So we're being conservative now with our figures, but we're still reporting on it. More than 100 people you interviewed for just just this. Tell people how you found all of this out. Yeah. So, you know, this is a kind of classic daisy chain where you talk to one source who knows three others. But we were reaching out to anyone we could. Flight attendants, pilots, drivers, chauffeurs, security guards, anyone who might be in the inner circles of some of these ultra wealthy benefactors. And then people in the Supreme Court world and in Thomas's world as well, trying to get the full picture we could. And just before we bring in the team, one of the things that I was struck by and people should understand is that Justice Thomas has often talked about living not a lavish life, whether it's in a documentary that was done on him or things that he said about, you know, I basically I don't do this job for the money. Right. So he has put forward to the public has he not, a more much more humble lifestyle. He has, yeah. He's he's kind of created that image and said multiple times, even in his relationship with Huizenga, Wayne Huizenga, he said, you know, we just like to sit on the front porch and talk and drink iced tea. But that's not that's not what happened. He's been he's been flown around on housing. Is jet taken to sporting events, taken to his luxury golf club. So he says one thing, but the reporting shows other things so Ellie, ProPublica reports and Tom just covered in his report that Huizenga, Sokol and Novella had no legal cases before the Supreme Court during this documented relationship. How should that inform, if at all, how people consume what's being reported? Shouldn't matter at all, because the point here is the appearance of impropriety, the fact that we wouldn't know, by the way, by any of this if not for ProPublica and your publication deserves real credit for blowing the lid off of this. But how does Clarence Thomas think the world actually works? Like we all have friends. Do any of your friends pay for your private vacations? It's unheard of. And the reason is this is a problem is it undermines public confidence. Rightly so. We all ask, I think, logically, why on earth are these guys spending millions of dollars, according to your reporting? Why is he accepting this? Why isn't he reporting it? And when you see these polls that show that the American people's confidence is at an all time low in the Supreme Court, I don't think it's necessarily because of the judicial outcomes they're delivering. People will always disagree on that. I think it's because we're now learning more than ever about just all the money flowing through here and all the lack of disclosure and transparency. Yeah. I mean, I think that that type of the Supreme Court that has existed in this kind of vaunted place where there wasn't this type of scrutiny that was really applied to some of these justices and I think that really matters for the public perception here. We're increasingly seeing a public that's dealing with the reality that these Supreme Court justices are are experiencing. This influx of money are so close to these kind of billionaires. And I think that appearance of impropriety has really set in. So when you see kind of public reacting, that that lack of trust really building up, I do think it's a build up of some of these type of things that it goes along with judicial outcomes. I would say also. But just the feeling that the Supreme Court has existed in a place that was outside of scrutiny and more importantly, can't really do anything about it. Right. Like that's the other thing that's come out from this is that it's not leading to an outcome that that I think a lot of folks would expect when there has been such clear reporting. If I can build on that, just whenever there has been an effort to enforce some sort of accountability, the response from the Supreme Court has been gone. Yeah. Right. A couple of months ago, the US Senate invited Chief Justice Roberts to come testify. Hey, we'd like to know what your ethical rules are and is there any way we might be able to pass legislation? And Chief Justice Roberts responded with a condescending two or four page letter where he basically said, First of all, allow me to correct misperceptions. They like to blame the media for fostering misperceptions rather than actually transparency in which you all are accounting. And then he says, yes, we know we consult with, we're not bound by, but we consult with various sources. And it was just this blow off and you wonder why people have no faith in them.
