-
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas purchased the RV for $267,000 with the help of a wealthy friend.
-
The New York Times reported that Thomas took out a loan from Anthony Welters, a former executive at UnitedHealthCare.
-
Wilters, a major Democratic donor, did not say how much money Thomas had loaned.
When he fulfilled a dream of buying a luxury recreational vehicle, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas He received financial help from a surprising source, The New York Times reported Saturday: a healthcare executive who, along with his wife, will go on to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to former President Barack Obama.
In 1999, Thomas, who had been appointed to the nation’s highest court eight years earlier, paid $267,230 for a Prevost Marathon RV, according to a vehicle title obtained by The Times.
In the years that followed, Thomas used the 40-foot giant to tour the country and visit luxury resorts. In his notes to the Supreme Court Historical Society, Thomas said he and his wife, Jenny — the right-wing activist who worked to overturn the 2020 election — visited 23 states in the RV during the summer of 2018.
But Thomas never revealed the fact that the car was funded in part by Anthony Wilters, a former UnitedHealthCare executive who worked alongside Thomas in the Reagan administration. Welters’ wife, Beatrice, served as an ambassador under Obama. which was donated by the couple between $200,000 and $500,000 during the 2008 presidential campaign and another $100,000 for his 2009 inauguration.
Revelation comes after Reporting from ProPublica It shows that Thomas accepted gifts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from another friend, Republican benefactor Harlan Crowe.
A Supreme Court spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a statement to The Times, Welters said he gave Thomas a loan so he could buy an RV. He also provided a copy of the “discharge,” he told the Times, showing that the loan was “satisfied.”
But Welters refused to say how much money was lent by the Supreme Court judge, nor on what terms. While he said the loan was fulfilled, that did not necessarily mean it was repaid, which raised questions about whether it should have been disclosed as a gift.
The disclosure comes amid an attempt to impose new ethical requirements on Supreme Court justices.
“They should adopt the same code of ethics as every other federal judge in America,” Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois who has sponsored new ethics legislation, He said last month. “The disclosures that have come out recently… really force us to do something for the court.”
Do you have a news tip? Email this reporter: cdavis@insider.com
Read the original article at Business interested
