Billionaire Republican donor reportedly paid for school for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' godson

By Dan Mangan —

Billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow paid expensive private school tuition for several years for a great-nephew of conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, a ProPublica investigative article reveals.

Thomas then had custody of the child.

The judge never disclosed in the official documents that Crow paid tuition, although he did disclose a much less generous payment of $5,000 of a fraction of Martin's tuition from another friend, the report says.

“Ethics law experts told ProPublica they believed Thomas was required by law to disclose the tuition payments because they appear to be a gift to him,” ProPublica wrote.

[Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas explains why he failed to report trips paid for by a conservative billionaire]

ProPublica recently revealed that Crow paid for lavish vacation trips for more than two decades for Thomas and his wife, Ginni, without the judge disclosing the gifts in the annual financial statements he is required to file.

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ProPublica also revealed that a Crow company bought property in Savannah, Georgia from Thomas's family, including a house where his mother continues to live rent-free.

Thomas had also not revealed the trips given by Crow or the fact that the millionaire bought the family properties.

Thomas's failure to do so had led to increasing calls, including from congressional Democrats, for reform of the ethics injunctions of the Supreme Court, which, unlike other courts, does not have a binding code.

Mark Martin, now in his 30s, is the son of Thomas's nephew, who at one point, when Martin was a child, was in jail on drug charges, ProPublica noted.

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Thomas assumed legal custody of Martin and became his guardian around January 1998, according to ProPublica.

Martin lived with him and his wife from the age of 6 to 19, he told ProPublica.

Tuition at one of the two institutions Martin attended, a boarding school in Georgia, was more than $6,000 a month, according to ProPublica.

Martin attended his junior year of high school there.

“Harlan was paying the bill,” said Christopher Grimwood, a former administrator at that school, Hidden Lake Academy.

Martin spent the rest of his high school years at a Virginia military boarding school, which Crow himself had attended, which charged between $25,000 and $30,000 a year, according to the report.

“Harlan said that he also paid tuition at Randolph-Macon Academy,” Grimwood told ProPublica.

ProPublica says Grimwood recalled Crow telling him during a visit to the billionaire's estate in New York's Adirondacks.

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A friend of Thomas's, attorney Mark Paoletta, said on Twitter Thursday that Crow paid for only one year, Martin's first, at Randolph-Macon, and then his year at Hidden Lake Academy.

Paoletta said Crow's office said "he did not pay the great-nephew's tuition for any other years at Randolph Macon."

Thomas, who did not respond to questions from ProPublica, did not immediately return a request for comment from CNBC.

Crow criticizes alleged partisan interests

In a statement to CNBC, Crow's office said: "Harlan Crow has long been passionate about the importance of quality education and giving back to those less fortunate, especially at-risk youth."

He added that Crow and his wife, Kathy, “have supported many young Americans through scholarships and other programs at a variety of schools, including their

.”

“It is disappointing that those with partisan political interests would try to turn helping at-risk youth with tuition assistance into something nefarious or political,” he concluded.

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Paoletta, a lawyer who served in the Donald Trump administration, wrote on Twitter: “The Thomases rarely speak publicly about their remarkably generous efforts to help a child in need.

They have always respected the privacy of this young man."

"It is despicable that the press has dragged him into his effort to discredit the judge," Paoletta wrote.

It argued that Thomas was not legally required to disclose tuition payments as a gift from Crow because the Ethics in Government Act does not include a great-nephew in its definition of “dependent child” but limits it to “son, daughter, stepson or stepdaughter”.

But Mark Bennett, a former federal judge appointed by former Democratic President Bill Clinton, told ProPublica: "You can't have secret financial deals."

And Richard Painter, who was White House chief ethics counsel under President George W. Bush, called Thomas' failure to disclose Crow's license plate and other gifts "highly out of the norm."