Justice Clarence Thomas’s Ties to Billionaire Benefactor Could Influence Supreme Court Cases: Exclusive Study Reveals

The company that provided Justice Clarence Thomas’s billionaire benefactor Harlan Crow with his business success and extreme wealth could benefit greatly from several key Supreme Court cases that Thomas is set to rule on, a new study reveals.

Crow, his real estate company Crow Holdings and its subsidiary Trammell Crow Residential (TCR) – a real estate development company founded by Crow’s father – have ties to at least four upcoming Supreme Court cases in which Thomas could essentially decide to give a helping hand to the companies whose profits indirectly helped finance his luxury trips with the billionaire.

These cases present high stakes, involving the enforcement of crucial protections for people with disabilities and the very future of governance in the United States. The research, provided exclusively to Truth by Accountable.US, suggests that Thomas’ ability to rule on a wide range of cases may be compromised by his personal relationship with Crow, who wields considerable influence in the business world and in the world of conservative advocacy – a corruption that could have enormous consequences for America. public.

“It was the decades-long relationship between Harlan Crow and Justice Thomas that sparked the corruption crisis at the Supreme Court. Today, Crow and other billionaire benefactors continue to benefit from their friends on the high court – and Chief Justice (John) Roberts refuses to do anything about it,” the Accountable president said. US, Caroline Ciccone, in a press release provided to Truth. “It’s high time for Roberts and his conflicted justices to stop putting their billionaire friends over ordinary Americans. »

Loper Bright Enterprises c.Raimondo

A key case in which Crow has an interest is Loper Bright Enterprises c.Raimondo, in which the high court could decide to overturn nearly 40 years of precedent regarding how federal agencies are allowed to interpret laws. “Chevron deference” is a foundational ruling that has been used to enforce nearly 20,000 agency rules, according to Lexis Nexis, including worker protections, emissions regulations, and more.

Deference to Chevron has been a long-standing target of TCR, the company once known as the largest landowner in the United States and which now touts its status as one of America’s largest developers.

In 2018, the company’s CEO, Ken Valach, submitted a comment to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) asking the Trump administration – which has also long sought to strip regulatory authority from federal agencies – to overturn a housing standard that was upheld in a 2015 Supreme Court ruling that was widely seen as a loss for developers.

The disparate impact standard was established to combat housing discrimination, even if it was not done intentionally. In his comment, Valach argued that HUD did not “properly limit” its disparate impact considerations, which “exceed HUD’s statutory authority and are therefore invalid,” he wrote. The SCOTUS case concerned HUD’s ability to implement the standard subject to Chevron’s deference – in other words, if Chevron’s deference were overturned, HUD’s application of disparate impact would not have may not have stood the scrutiny of the Court and could have been invalidated.

This was the result Thomas had apparently desired; At the time, the judge wrote a separate dissenting opinion, calling the disparate impact rules a “system” that “represents the triumph of agency preferences over congressional legislation.” He further argued that racial imbalances do not necessarily reflect discrimination against blacks and other oppressed communities. “In our own country, for about a quarter century now, more than 70 percent of the players in the National Basketball Association have been black,” he wrote, supposedly to illustrate his point.

Crow Holdings’ Involvement in Chevron’s Deference Fall – As Established in the 1984 SCOTUS Document Chevron c. Natural Resources Defense Council decision — is important; Chevron was applied in more than 41 percent of cases involving HUD, according to a 2017 study.

This may be why the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) filed an amicus brief in the case opposing the standard in 2014, making a similar argument to Valach that the rules disparate impacts “exceed HUD’s statutory authority.” NMHC is closely tied to Crow Holdings — Valach is NMHC’s current chairman and TCR is among the industry group’s top donors, at the “Chair’s Circle” level of at least $50,000 per year. Former TCR CFO Timothy Hogan was also on NMHC’s executive committee when the group filed its brief.

CFPB v. Community Financial Services Association of America

The NMHC also has a major interest in the Supreme Court case challenging the existence of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), whose arguments the justices heard last week. The CFPB has a long history of using disparate impact to combat discrimination in lending and among consumer financial services generally.

The CFPB was created in the wake of the 2008 recession to protect consumers from fraud, scams and other predatory practices — like those used by prominent members of the NMHC that the group likely seeks to protect. According to a study by Accountable.US, the CFPB ordered the other donors in the TRC’s “Chair’s Circle” – Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, Regions Bank and Wells Fargo – to collectively pay at least $5.5 billion for mismanagement. and deceptive or illegal practices.

NMHC has spent more than $15 million lobbying the CFPB and other related agencies since 2021, while opposing policies such as the Biden administration’s plan for a tenants’ bill of rights; agencies seeking feedback on housing discrimination caused by background checks; and the COVID-induced federal moratorium on evictions, which the CFPB helped administer.

When the Supreme Court struck down the eviction moratorium in 2021, with Thomas ruling in the majority, the NMHC celebrated the decision, saying the real estate industry was “vigorously opposed” to the policy. Crow Holdings had filed for 122 evictions while the moratorium was in effect, according to the Private Equity Stakeholder Project. Thomas has already been asked to recuse himself from the CFPB case due to distinct ties to figures seeking to destroy the agency.

Acheson Hotels LLC c.

TRC could also be invested in the outcome of another upcoming SCOTUS case that could wipe out one of the most effective enforcement mechanisms of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Acheson Hotels LLC c. concerns whether a disability advocate can sue a hotel that the lawsuit alleges failed to provide appropriate accessibility information online.

As Accountable.US points out, TRC previously had to settle a case in New York in which the state’s attorney general said the company failed to provide accessible facilities for people with disabilities at a 795-room apartment complex. units. The company was ordered to pay $75,000 to the injured parties and upgrade the facilities.

Crow also has an indirect connection to the defendants in this case. The right-wing Center for Constitutional Accountability has come out openly in favor of the hotel in this case and filed an amicus brief supporting Acheson Hotels in 2022. The group’s president is Adam White, who has two professional ties to Crow. White is a senior SCOTUS fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, of which Harlan Crow is a board member, and was previously a fellow at the Hoover Institution, of which Crow is a board member.

Moore v. United States

Finally, Crow likely has a personal financial interest in Moore v. United States, which could prohibit the possibility of creating a wealth tax in the United States and create a major obstacle to the advancement of wealth equality nationally. Crow and conservative billionaire Paul Singer, who previously gave undisclosed gifts to Justice Samuel Alito, could see some of their personal wealth taxed under various wealth tax proposals.

Singer is president of the Manhattan Institute, which filed an amicus brief urging the SCOTUS to preemptively ban the wealth tax. Crow’s wife, Kathy Crow, is on the group’s board of directors.

Crow already has a history of apparently avoiding taxes, having perhaps dubiously classified his superyacht that Thomas rode on as a charter boat on tax forms, as ProPublica reported. The result of Moore v. United States It could also have a personal impact on Thomas: If Crow were ever to face a wealth tax, Thomas’ ability to take billionaire-funded vacations every year could be compromised.