- NEW YORK POST - Steven F. Hayward - APRIL 14, 2023 -
The manufactured “scandal” of Justice Clarence Thomas’ relationship with philanthropist Harlan Crow unites two of the left’s chief bigotries today — a hatred of black conservatives and a hatred of billionaires.
Given the left’s relentless attacks on Thomas ever since bogus sexual-harassment charges failed to derail his confirmation back in 1991, the only surprise is that it took so long to come up with this angle.
Last week, ProPublica, a self-described “independent, non-profit investigative journalism” organization funded by left-wing philanthropists aligned with the Democratic Party, broke the story that Thomas has accepted numerous flights and trips on Crow’s private jet and luxury yacht, as well as annual vacations with Crow at Crow’s summer retreat in New York’s Adirondacks.
Most of these trips were not disclosed as the Supreme Court’s disclosure rules exempt personal hospitality — and, as anyone who knows Harlan Crow recognizes, his extensive hospitality to a great many people is central to his life.
Nonetheless, various government “ethics” experts have denounced Thomas for exploiting a “loophole.”
ProPublica went to enormous lengths to learn the details of Thomas’ relationship with Crow, scouring flight records and interviewing yacht crews and resort staff that have worked for or near Crow’s holdings.
That’s a standard modus operandi for ProPublica. Its last big “scoop” was revealing very specific details of the income-tax returns for the 15 highest-income Americans, including Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg — details that came from a “leak” from inside the IRS that ProPublica failed to mention constituted a felony.
(The IRS leaker has still not been found.)
ProPublica also dinged Thomas for not reporting the sale of a property to a company linked to Crow, who says he bought it in order to preserve it for posterity.
The entire payment was for a whopping $133,363, of which Thomas had a one-third interest. Meanwhile, Joe Biden gets a pass for dubious real-estate deals involving many multiples of that sum.
There is a clear pattern to ProPublica’s “independent” journalism.
As is well-known today, neither ProPublica nor any other media outlet (aside from the New York Post) has shown any interest in the swirling evidence of corruption by the Biden family, which includes banking interests purchasing residential property from then-Sen. Joe Biden during the years that Delaware’s banking industry was heavily lobbying Biden to “reform” bankruptcy laws in a manner more favorable to banking interests (which finally passed in 2007).
And let’s not get started on the media’s incuriosity about circumstantial evidence of widespread insider trading by members of Congress.