Billionaire Harlan Crow’s lawyer pushed back on Senate Judiciary Democrats’ efforts to obtain information regarding his friendship with Justice Clarence Thomas in a letter to committee chair Sen. Dick Durbin, asserting that they have not reciprocated Crow’s “good faith efforts” to cooperate.
Michael D. Bopp, Crow’s lawyer, sharply criticized Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats in an Oct. 19 letter for failing to accept Crow’s attempt to partially cooperate in their requests for information, which were made in May in response to reports of expense-paid trips Thomas took with Crow, despite the “evident lack of legal justification and questionable need for the Committee’s invasive inquiry.” Bopp argued in a May letter on behalf of Crow that the committee has not identified “a valid legislative purpose” for the investigation and that Congress “does not have the constitutional power to impose ethics rules and standards on the Supreme Court.”
The committee rejected Crow’s proposal to partially respond to the inquiry with information covering the past five years in an Oct. 5 letter, calling it “unreasonable” in light of reporting on Crow’s at least 25-year friendship with Thomas.
“Good faith cooperation in the course of this inquiry cannot be a one-way street,” Bopp wrote in the letter. “Mr. Crow made a fair and reasonable offer to assist the Committee and satisfy its desire for information, even though we do not believe the Committee’s requests are legitimate.”
The committee sought information in response to ProPublica’s reporting on expense-paid trips and other gifts Crow provided to Thomas, along with Crow’s purchase of Thomas’ mother’s home. ProPublica, which has continued to publish stories on Thomas since the committee’s original letter was sent, shares its top donors with a number of activist groups that campaign for Thomas to be investigated or resign.
Bopp alleges the committee, rather than cooperating with Crow, has “only deepened its focus on Republican-appointed Justices to the exclusion of Democrat-appointed Justices, sending additional letters to friends of Justices Thomas and Alito.” It points to Durbin’s call for Thomas to recuse himself from the consequential upcoming case challenging Chevron’s deference.
“Against this backdrop, the only reasonable conclusion is that the Committee’s inquiry seeks to advance aims that are nakedly political,” Bopp wrote.
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