Harlan Crow paid $100K in tuition for Clarence Thomas

A new chapter had been added to the Harlan Crow-Clarence Thomas investigation

Crow, a billionaire real estate titan and former CEO of Dallas-based Crow Holdings, paid two years of private-school tuition for the Supreme Court justice’s grandnephew, whom Thomas was raising “as a son,” ProPublica reported. 

Crow paid roughly $100,000 to the schools where the grandnephew, Mark Martin, attended, according to Mark Paoletta, a friend of Thomas and former lawyer for the justice’s wife, Ginni. 

The schools were Hidden Lake Academy, located in the foothills of northern Georgia, and Randolph-Macon Academy, a military school 75 miles west of Washington, D.C. Crow is a Randolph-Macon alumnus.

Federal law requires justices to report most gifts, and many ethics experts say Thomas broke the law by not disclosing luxurious vacations and other gifts he accepted from Crow since the 1990s, which came to light in a ProPublica investigation published April 6. 

Justices also must report gifts to their spouses and dependent children. However, since Thomas was Martin’s legal guardian, and not his parent, the term “dependent” is blurry. The justice could argue that these gifts to Martin were unrelated to him, but experts say that argument is far-fetched.

“The most reasonable interpretation of the statute is that this was a gift to Thomas and thus had to be reported. It’s common sense,” Kathleen Clark, an ethics law expert at Washington University, told the outlet. “It’s all to the financial benefit of Clarence Thomas.”

While Thomas never disclosed Crow’s tuition payments, he did report a $5,000 donation from a friend who paid for Martin’s tuition. 

Thomas took legal custody when Martin was 6 years old, after his father went to prison on a drug conviction. Thomas was raised without a father, and his grandparents took him in “under very similar circumstances,” the outlet reported.

Martin, now 30, said he was unaware that Crow funded his education for those two years. He defended Thomas and Crow, saying they were good friends and that there was no ulterior motive to the billionaire’s gifts.

Crow, a Republican supporter who has donated millions to the party, affirmed that he had no intent to influence Thomas politically, in an interview with the Dallas Morning News.

In response to the Mark Martin case, Crow’s office issued the following statement to ProPublica:

“Harlan Crow has long been passionate about the importance of quality education and giving back to those less fortunate, especially at-risk youth. 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.” 

—Quinn Donoghue