The day after the House Oversight Committee released detailed financial documents that exposed how much foreign money was being funneled to the Biden family, leftist ProPublica dropped another hit piece to continue their high-tech lynching of Justice Clarence Thomas. The report was parroted by CNN News Central on Thursday. And despite giving the smear job oxygen, they reluctantly had to admit there was no evidence of wrongdoing.
Anchor John Berman led into the segment by clutching his pearls because Thomas had hung out with “billionaire friends,” something the liberal media permitted the Obamas to do.
CNN correspondent Tom Foreman rattled off ProPublica’s list of “extraordinary big gifts,” which included “38 destination vacations, 26 private jet flights, 12 VIP passes to pro and college events, two stays at luxury resorts in Florida and Jamaica, one standing invitation to an uber-exclusive golf club, and there was a voyage around the Bahamas by yacht, helicopters.”
Former advisor to Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), Steve Guest took to Twitter to call out how former liberal justices like the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg had taken “157 trips, 28 international trips,” and Stephen Breyer accepted “233 trips, 63 international trips.” That’s in contrast to the “109 reported trips, 5 international trips” taken by Thomas in a similar amount of time.
None of that was mentioned by Foreman, but that didn’t stop him from falsely suggesting that Thomas was the recipient of more trips than anyone in Washington D.C. “Even in a town in D.C. where a lot of people trade favors, this is an awful lot of favors worth, according to ProPublica, millions of dollars and they don’t think they’ve accounted for all of it yet,” he claimed.
Guest also called out ProPublica for taking gifts from liberal dark money organizations. “ProPublica is funded by folks including the Sandler Foundation to the tune of $40 MILLION & the George Soros backed Foundation To Promote Open Society to the tune of over $3 MILLION,” he wrote.
Foreman did reluctantly admit that Thomas had done nothing wrong:
Is it illegal or against any rules for very wealthy people to give gifts like this to somebody? No. The people giving the gifts – there’s no indication they did anything other than use the extraordinary wealth to give amazing gifts.
It is also not entirely clear if Clarence Thomas broke a law or rules by accepting this. ProPublica seems to think he did, others will argue they don’t. Some of his defenders are saying this is a big hit job on him to say all of this.
He would later admit that “there’s no evidence that any of [the people who gave Thomas gifts] had direct business before the court[.]” That’s in direct contrast to liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor who refused to recuse herself when her book publisher directly had business before the court, which she ruled on.
CNN’s boosting of the anti-Clarence Thomas hit piece was made possible because of lucrative sponsorships from PC Matic and Tide. Their contact information is linked.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
CNN News Central
August 10, 2023
9:48:47 a.m. EasternJOHN BERMAN: Brand-new reporting this morning on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Dozens of lavish trips paid for by billionaire friends. This comes from ProPublica and shines a light on decades of behavior in detail we just haven’t seen before. CNN’s Tom Foreman joins us now with the details here. Tom.
TOM FOREMAN: I mean, john, this is a lot. Let’s talking about the people who are giving this to him in the first place. David Sokol, the late Wayne Huizenga – pasted away five years ago, Paul Novelly, and Harlan Crow. These are extraordinary wealthy people who were giving Clarence Thomas extraordinary big gifts.
In this ProPublica reporting, among the things they itemize from these four folks were 38 destination vacations, 26 private jet flights, 12 VIP passes to pro and college events, two stays at luxury resorts in Florida and Jamaica, one standing invitation to an uber-exclusive golf club, and there was a voyage around the Bahamas by yacht, helicopters.
Is it illegal or against any rules for very wealthy people to give gifts like this to somebody? No. The people giving the gifts – there’s no indication they did anything other than use the extraordinary wealth to give amazing gifts.
It is also not entirely clear if Clarence Thomas broke a law or rules by accepting this. ProPublica seems to think he did, others will argue they don’t. Some of his defenders are saying this is a big hit job on him to say all of this.
But, the bottom line is, when it arose last spring with some of the gifts from Harlan Crow who, for example, bought a home for Thomas's mother, Thomas’s defense at the time was the say, “Early in my tenure at the Court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of the personal hospitality from close friends or from the personal friends who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable.”
Now, to be sure, ProPublica says there’s no evidence that any of these four people had direct business before the court at this time, those that have said anything about it have said, “We never talked about business before the Court.” But many people are saying this is also a question of appearance here, and scale, John.
Even in a town in D.C. where a lot of people trade favors, this is an awful lot of favors worth, according to ProPublica, millions of dollars and they don’t think they’ve accounted for all of it yet.
BERMAN: Yeah, two things here, Tom. One, I need much better friends. Two, whether or not this broke any rules, this is exactly why there are people calling for much more specific ethics guidance in the Supreme Court. Tom Foreman, a lot more to come here. Thank you very much.
