Color me surprised…. Clarence Thomas Had a Child in Private School. Harlan Crow Paid the Tuition. We aren’t talking chump change, either. The school cost $6,000 a month. The kid was there for a year, and Crow picked up the tab. But wait! There’s more! Turns out the money did not come out of Crow’s pocket. No, that would be too simple. The money came out of his company’s account. This opens up a whole new can of worms. I’ll come back to that at the end.
At this point, I think it is important to state this is not speculation. This is not rumor. This is not a claim based on hearsay evidence. This is a fact that would be admissible in court. There is hard evidence, and at least one witness.
A bank statement for the school from July 2009, buried in unrelated court filings, shows the source of Martin’s tuition payment for that month: the company of billionaire real estate magnate Harlan Crow.
There is even a person who worked there that corroborates this.
The payments extended beyond that month, according to Christopher Grimwood, a former administrator at the school. Crow paid Martin’s tuition the entire time he was a student there, which was about a year, Grimwood told ProPublica.
Apparently, these payments continued when the kid, who Thomas had taken legal custody of, transferred to another school. That means we are looking at a lot more than a mere $6,000 dollars. It could be as much as $150,000 for private schools. You think that’s the end of it? Silly rabbit, what about college? Thomas is on record as saying he was raising this kid as if he was his own son. So I am going to go out on a limb here and speculate that means he took care of the kid’s college expenses as well. Call me a cynic, but I bet if you look at who paid for the kid’s college, it won’t be someone whose last name is Thomas.
But wait! There’s more! This next piece of news is going to come as a shock to you, so make sure you are sitting down.
Thomas did not report the tuition payments from Crow on his annual financial disclosures. Several years earlier, Thomas disclosed a gift of $5,000 for Martin’s education from another friend. It is not clear why he reported that payment but not Crow’s.
That is shocking. Not the part about multiple people paying for his kid’s education. I mean the part about it is “not clear why” he failed to report that Crow had covered a combined total of as much as $150,000 in educational costs. I am shocked anyone looking in to this failure to report — as required by law — is not clear on why he tried to hide it. We know why he didn’t report it. It’s illegal for public officials to accept gifts of any significant value from someone who may have business before them. It’s also a violation of the ABA Code of Judicial Conduct. Yeah, I know, rules are for little people.
Per usual, Thomas refused to answer the question when Propublica reached out to him about this, so they tried Crow. When Propublica reached out to Crow for an explanation, here was his response:
“Harlan Crow has long been passionate about the importance of quality education and giving back to those less fortunate, especially at-risk youth,” the statement said. “It’s disappointing that those with partisan political interests would try to turn helping at-risk youth with tuition assistance into something nefarious or political.”
Wow. Talk about brazen.
I wonder if anyone is going to look into the company records to see how they booked this expense. Someone is going to have to explain this if they took it as a “charitable donation” or some other deduction. People go to jail all the time for this sort of shady accounting. Of course, Crow probably doesn’t worry about that. He can just appeal any conviction to the Supreme Court.