A Pulitzer-winning deep dive into the Supreme Court scandal (Pt 2): Harlan Crow Bought Property from Clarence Thomas. The Justice Didn’t Disclose the Deal.
www.propublica.org
This is Part 2 of a Pulitzer-winning ongoing series exploring the financial scandal surrounding the Supreme Court. For the other parts, or to discuss the series as a whole, click here.
In 2014, one of Texas billionaire Harlan Crow’s companies purchased a string of properties on a quiet residential street in Savannah, Georgia. It wasn’t a marquee acquisition for the real estate magnate, just an old single-story home and two vacant lots down the road. What made it noteworthy were the people on the other side of the deal: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his relatives.
The purchase put Crow in an unusual position: He now owned the house where the justice’s elderly mother was living. Soon after the sale was completed, contractors began work on tens of thousands of dollars of improvements on the two-bedroom, one-bathroom home, which looks out onto a patch of orange trees. The renovations included a carport, a repaired roof and a new fence and gates, according to city permit records and blueprints.
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