Thomas likes to fashion himself as an everyman who likes nothing better to hang out at RV parks and Walmart parking lots because “I come from a regular stock and I prefer that. I prefer being around that."
I guess he just forgot to mention that the RV he travels in is basically the Rolls Royce of motor homes. As C&L reported in August, Thomas’ RV cost more than a quarter of a million dollars, used. A new one would have likely cost over a million. The New York Times described his Prevost Marathon Le Mirage XL as “a brand favored by touring rock bands and the super-wealthy.”
So how did a guy on a judge’s salary afford such a vehicle? No, not via more largesse from the generous billionaires we already know about. Nor more dark money to wife Ginni.
The RV is part of what The Times described as a sweetheart deal of a 1999 loan, plus a lengthy extension, from another wealthy Thomas pal, Anthony Welters. We've learned a lot about it because a Times investigation prompted a Senate inquiry.
The details of the financial arrangements are pretty weedy but the bottom line is that the deal almost certainly violated an ethics rule and likely violated tax law, too.
Welters claims that he forgave the principal of the loan in 2008, after Thomas made a number of interest payments, supposedly because they added up to more than the purchase price of the bus. But The Times said Welters’ math “doesn’t add up”:
Even if Justice Thomas had made all the scheduled annual interest-only payments, that would only amount to a little over $180,000 — nearly $87,000 short of the purchase price. What’s more, the only proof of payment that Mr. Welters was able to provide to investigators was a copy of a single canceled check, dated December 2000, for $20,042 — the amount of a single interest payment.
It's worse than fuzzy math. The Times says that the documents Welters volunteered to the paper over the summer “indicate that, at the very least, Justice Thomas appears to have flouted an ethics rule requiring that he include any 'discharge of indebtedness' as income on required annual financial disclosure reports. In addition, the Internal Revenue Service treats debt forgiveness as income to the borrower.”
Welters claims that the whole thing is just a friend lending money to another friend, not like a bank. But that is not how tax laws work, according to The Times:
Assuming that the loan was entered into genuinely, and not intended from the start as an outright gift, the I.R.S. would treat the forgiven $267,230 — as well as any missed interest payments — as income to Justice Thomas, according to Mr. Hamersley and other experts.
Senator Ron Wyden, Democratic chair of the Senate Finance Committee, has questions. Noting that Thomas “had up to $267,230 in debt forgiven and never reported it on his ethics forms,” Wyden asked Thomas to “inform the committee exactly how much debt was forgiven and whether he properly reported the loan forgiveness on his tax returns and paid all taxes owed.”
Wyden also directed the committee to share its findings with the Senate Judiciary Committee “to evaluate the ethics implications.”
We all deserve answers to those questions.
