A lawyer for Harlan Crow, the GOP megadonor who provided luxury travel and engaged in private real estate deals with Clarence Thomas, has offered to meet with Senate Judiciary Committee staff to discuss its questions regarding the interactions between his client and the Supreme Court justice.
In a letter to Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin obtained by CNN, the lawyer, Michael Bopp, reiterated his concerns that the committee does not have the authority to investigate the relationship between the two men, but agreed to meet all the same. “We respect the Senate Judiciary Committee’s important role in formulating legislation concerning our federal courts system, and would welcome a discussion with your staff,” Bopp wrote.
The letter marks a new phase in Crow’s approach to dealing with the Senate committee’s inquiry – signaling an understanding of the panel’s oversight role when it comes to the judiciary. Last weekend, Crow did not respond the same way to Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden, suggesting he intends not to cooperate with that committee because he questions its jurisdiction over the matter.
Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, previously asked the Texas billionaire’s team to provide a number of documents to the committee by June 2 and has pushed back on assertions from Crow that the panel lacks authority to request personal tax information and travel records from him as part of a probe into whether hospitality he provided to Thomas could have triggered violations of US tax law.
Crow’s relationship with Thomas has been under the spotlight since ProPublica published a series of reports detailing luxury travel that Thomas received from Crow, as well as a private 2014 real estate deal with Thomas’ family. The real estate transaction and the bulk of the hospitality went unreported on Thomas’ annual financial disclosures, as did Crow’s reported payments for…
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