Wednesday, April 12, 2023

Billionaire with Deep Ties to Conservative Think Tanks Feted Supreme Court Justice

Here is more from ProPublica:

For more than two decades, [Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas] has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from [Dallas businessman Harlan Crow] without disclosing them, documents and interviews show.

During just one trip in July 2017, Thomas’ fellow guests included executives at Verizon and PricewaterhouseCoopers, major Republican donors and one of the leaders of the American Enterprise Institute, a pro-business conservative think tank, according to records reviewed by ProPublica. 

Crow has deep connections in conservative politics. The heir to a real estate fortune, Crow oversees his family’s business empire and recently named Marxism as his greatest fear. He was an early patron of the powerful anti-tax group Club for Growth and has been on the board of AEI for over 25 years. He also sits on the board of the Hoover Institution, another conservative think tank.

Crow has long supported efforts to move the judiciary to the right. He has donated to the Federalist Society and given millions of dollars to groups dedicated to tort reform and conservative jurisprudence. AEI and the Hoover Institution publish scholarship advancing conservative legal theories, and fellows at the think tanks occasionally file amicus briefs with the Supreme Court.

 

Harlan Crow joined AEI's board of trustees in 1996, the same year that former vice president Dick Cheney joined the board. 

His wife Kathy Crow is on the board of trustees of the think tank Manhattan Institute.