Justin Elliott
@JustinElliott
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ProPublica reporter. Email tips/comments/complaints: justin @propublica .org Signal:
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NEW: Clarence Thomas secretly accepted lavish luxury travel for decades from a billionaire businessman/GOP donor, in apparent repeat violation of ethics law.
Fmr judge: “It’s incomprehensible to me that someone would do this."
w/
@js_kaplan
@Amierjeski
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A detail from our story today: Ted Cruz tweeted this photo of Clarence Thomas swearing in 5th Circuit Judge James Ho. Turns out this is in billionaire Harlan Crow's private library, and flight records show Crow's jet dispatched to DC and back to Dallas before + after this event
Honored to attend Jim Ho's swearing in to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals today, alongside Justice Clarence Thomas & Judge Jerry Smith. I am confident my good friend Jim will be an extraordinary appellate judge and a principled jurist faithful to the law.
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NEW: Billionaire Harlan Crow bought property from Clarence Thomas in undisclosed real estate deal.
Crow netted two vacant lots and the house where Thomas’ elderly mother was living. It’s unclear if he paid fair market value.
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@js_kaplan
@Amierjeski
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Our story:
Justice Samuel Alito Took Luxury Fishing Vacation With GOP Billionaire Who Later Had Cases Before the Court
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NEW:
Clarence Thomas Had a Child in Private School. Harlan Crow Paid the Tuition.
The price tag could have exceeded $150,000.
w/
@js_kaplan
@Amierjeski
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At least 3 rich businessmen have gotten access to Supreme Court justices by paying for their lux vacations. Justice Scalia got an Alaska vacation paid for by the same businessman who hosted Justice Alito. Here he is making martinis out of glacier ice:
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Our new story:
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas secretly participated in Koch network donor events – a breach of judicial norms that one federal judge said “takes my breath away.”
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NEW: Our latest story is about one of the most powerful people you’ve probably never heard of.
He’s emerged as a Koch-style funder on the right, pouring $100M+ into politics, and backing a host of 2020 election deniers.
And he’s mysteriously good at avoiding taxes.
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CNN: Harlan Crow is not charging Justice Thomas' mother rent
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As the
@propublica
crew looked through tax data of America’s ultrarich, we noticed Jeff Yass, a finance deca-billionaire and major TikTok investor.
Many on Wall Street are good at avoiding taxes. But Yass is in a league of his own.
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NEW: Confidential tax records show how Donald Trump’s tax cut for “small business” showered cash on some of the country’s richest families
The latest from The Secret IRS Files, by me and
@RobertFaturechi
:
(thread)
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Our story reveals Harlan Crow paid boarding school tuition for Mark Martin, a relative who Justice Thomas took in and raised as a son from age 6.
Here’s a bank statement we’re publishing showing a wire of Crow Holdings LLC paying $6,200 for a month’s tuition:
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Clarence Thomas’ acceptance of free vacations as a government official dates back to the 80s, per NYT:
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NEW from us:
The fortune behind the single biggest right-wing donor this election comes from a strange source: the cardboard boxes and paper bags strewn about your home.
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Senate Finance Committee finds "Justice Thomas Did Not Repay Substantial Portion of $267,230 Loan" from wealthy friend for RV that NYT first reported
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Laura Ingraham (
@IngrahamAngle
) did a segment attacking our story on Justice Alito's Alaska fishing trip. She failed to disclose she's good friends with the lodge owner, and Ingraham herself has raved about a fishing trip she took to the lodge:
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One detail from the story: on a New Zealand cruise on Harlan Crow's superyacht, Thomas gave a yacht worker a copy of his own memoir as a tip -- signed: "Thank you so much for all your hard work on our New Zealand adventure."
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Here is Thomas' signature on the deed for his deal with Crow + the vacant lots Crow bought from Thomas.
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NEW:
Justice Clarence Thomas’ private complaints about money once sparked fears he would resign from the court.
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While his peers such as Ken Griffin of
@Citadel
and
@CliffordAsness
of AQR, typically pay tax rates in the 30%+, range, Yass has averaged 19%.
That saved him more than $1 billion in taxes in just six years.
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Susquehanna, Yass and firm co-founders Arthur Dantchik and Joel Greenberg declined to comment.
Here’s the full story, from me,
@eisingerj
,
@paulkiel
,
@jeffernsthausen
, & Doris Burke. Charts and visuals by
@lenagroeger
and
@lrsnwlkr
.
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Why should you care about Yass? He’s pouring his fortune into politics – to cut taxes, privatize schools, and back candidates trying to ban abortion and others who deny the 2020 election results.
Here’s an ad he funded on “critical race theory”:
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We're still reporting , if you have information we should know about any of this, or the Supreme Court, please get in touch - justin
@propublica
.org (Signal/WhatsApp 774-826-6240 )
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Justice Thomas didn't respond to our detailed questions. Crow sent us this statement about his plans to create a museum to tell Thomas' story at one of the houses he bought.
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We’re still reporting. Know something we should know related to the Supreme Court? Get in touch: justin
@propublica
.org Cell/Signal/WhatsApp: 774-826-6240.
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Crow’s office didn’t respond to detailed questions but said in a statement:
“Harlan Crow has long been passionate about the importance of quality education and giving back to those less fortunate, especially at-risk youth.”
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With uncanny consistency, Yass has managed to take in virtually all of his income taxed at the special low rate reserved for longer-term investments.
Take a look:
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Deepening the mystery, Yass’ firm, Susquehanna, specializes in ultra-short-term high-volume trading that is typically taxed at rates around 40%.
But Yass has managed to make only the type of income taxed at the lower rate of around 20% reserved for longer-term investments.
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His firm, Susquehanna International Group, is a major player in markets, buying and selling with retail traders on
@RobinhoodApp
, E*Trade, and elsewhere.
So how does Yass keep his taxes so low?
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We recently reported on how the Uihlein family – currently the single largest donors to the GOP – have funded far-right causes for generations, going back to at least the “America First” of the 1940s.
But, it turns out, the story doesn’t end there.
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Yass is the single biggest donor to Rand Paul’s “Protect Freedom PAC,” giving more than $12 million. The group’s website says of Democrats: “Of course, they stole the election.”
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We're still reporting -- if you have tips about the Supreme Court, get in touch: justin
@propublica
.org , Signal/WhatsApp: 774-826-6240
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Notable in light of Justice Alito's WSJ op-ed: during his Senate confirmation hearings, he said he recuses himself when “any possible question might arise.”
He now maintains that accepting private jet flights from a litigant is not grounds for recusal.
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New: Senate Judiciary Committee will hold vote to authorize subpoenas to Harlan Crow and Leonard Leo as part of its ongoing investigation into Supreme Court ethics and Justice Thomas
Statement from
@SenatorDurbin
@SenWhitehouse
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The FTC has filed in federal court for a restraining order against
@Intuit
over "the deceptive claim that consumers can file their taxes for free using TurboTax when in truth" they often cannot.
Posted to PACER around 90 minutes ago:
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And he does it at scale. In a recent period, Yass had the sixth-highest annual income of anyone in the entire United States, making more than $1 billion per year, only surpassed by folks like Bill Gates & Michael Bloomberg:
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We found that the engine of Yass’ tax avoidance machine is a fund called Susquehanna Fundamental Investments.
It uses trading strategies that consistently produce massive long-term gains and short-term losses, a combination that doesn’t make profits but does slash taxes.
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We're still reporting on this, and the Supreme Court more generally.
If you know anything we should, reach out: justin
@propublica
.org || Signal/WhatsApp 774-826-6240
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Thomas’ relationship with Charles and David Koch developed over years of trips to the Bohemian Grove, a secretive all-men’s retreat in California where the justice stayed in a small camp with Harlan Crow and the Kochs.
(Image: the “Cremation of Care” production at the Grove)
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Yass developed an obsession with taxes, former colleagues say, and Susquehanna embraced numerous strategies to slash its tax bill.
As one former trader put it: “They hate fucking taxes.”
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Yass has repeatedly drawn IRS audits and has often gone to court to fight the government. In 2019 he and two partners were hit with a total of $121 million in back taxes.
Susquehanna has maintained in court filings that it complied with the law.
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Perhaps the most discordant thing about Justice Alito's decision not to disclose a free mulit-day lux fishing trip and $$$ private jet flight is the year before he reported a gift of a mere $500 in Italian food and wine
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For anyone in the weeds on the Thomas travel story, this is the text of the law that ethics lawyers told us he violated. Gifts – such as private jet travel – need to be reported, unless they are “food, lodging, or entertainment received as personal hospitality.”
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New: Sen. David Perdue lobbied the Trump admin to extend a major tax break to wealthy sports team owners. Among the potential beneficiaries: WNBA team owner Kelly Loeffler.
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New:
The surge protector magnate who gave $1.6 billion to a conservative legal activist has also secretly funded climate denial and a host of other right-wing causes over the years.
Barre Seid has dubbed his giving style "attack philanthropy."
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NEW:
Lord of the Roths: How Tech Mogul Peter Thiel Turned a Retirement Account for the Middle Class Into a $5 Billion Dollar Tax-Free Piggy Bank
(thread)
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New: This Treasury Official Is Running the Bailout. It’s Been Great for His Family.
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The full backstory:
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Flush with profits, the Uihleins have poured money into right-wing politics, $120M this cycle alone on state and federal races.
They’re the biggest donors to Doug Mastriano in PA and have also given to election-denying Nevada Sec. of State candidate Jim Marchant.
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This Yoo-Thomas appearance is actually at Crow's property and is one of the examples of Crow's private jet going to DC for a brief stop before going to a destination where Thomas is appearing
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Who are the Uihleins? Dick Uihlein, the patriarch, doesn’t talk much publicly but has said he inherited his politics from his father, Ed.
And Ed Uihlein, we discovered, was a major donor to the Red-baiting John Birch Society and backed multiple segregationists in the ‘60s.
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The Uihleins didn’t respond to requests for comment for the story. Here’s the full story by me,
@MegsNewz
, and Doris Burke:
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NEW:
How billionaire sports owners use their teams to avoid millions in taxes
Latest in The Secret IRS Files series, from
@RobertFaturechi
@emsimani
and me
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Chief Justice Roberts declines to testify before Senate hearing on Supreme Court ethics in letter to
@SenatorDurbin
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We found that Thomas was pushing for ways to make more money in a period, two decades ago, when he was developing his relationships with a set of wealthy benefactors.
There are still a lot we don’t know. But some of what we found:
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We found Dick and Liz Uihlein of Illinois — owners of the
@Uline
shipping supplies empire — have emerged as big winners in the era of online shopping & the pandemic. Demand for their products has soared, with the couple making over $700M in a single recent year.
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A small detail from our story showing how things work behind the scenes at George Mason's Scalia law school.
Seid, a donor, asks the dean for help getting his nephew -- "Nepot" -- into law school, and this is how the dean responded. (GMU didn't respond to requests for comment.)
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Harlan Crow’s lawyers write new letter to
@RonWyden
declining to give requested info on gifts to Justice Thomas. Wyden statement:
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New: The federal eviction ban is so poorly enforced, multiple large landlords reversed their eviction filings only after ProPublica contacted them and pointed out they were illegal.
w/
@JeffErnsthausen
@emsimani
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This is in the statute itself and predates the recent filing guidance update. The text of law:
and the story:
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On a trip home from a conservative conference in 2000, Thomas privately warned a GOP congressman: if Congress didn’t boost SCOTUS salaries, one or more justices would leave soon.
The conversation was documented in contemporaneous records we obtained.
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Fast forward two decades, Thomas was asked in an interview how he felt about Supreme Court salaries: “Oh goodness, I think it’s plenty,” he said.
A few weeks later, Thomas boarded Harlan Crow’s private jet for a free island cruise on Crow’s yacht in Indonesia.
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.
@RonWyden
responds to Harlan Crow's attorney on request for rundown of Clarence Thomas gifts + tax implications:
"I realize the committee may need to follow another route to compel his answers, and I’m prepared to make that happen."
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Yesterday former Sen. Max Baucus (
@BigSkyMax
) wrote a USA Today op-ed arguing against a proposal to end exploitation of IRAs by billionaires.
Why is the retired Democratic senator weighing in on a proposal that would affect a tiny number of the rich? We tried to find out.
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Durbin: "It is time for Congress to accept its responsibility to establish an enforceable code of ethics for the Supreme Court, the only agency of our government without it"
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Around the year 2000, Thomas was frustrated with his financial situation, according to friends. He and his wife had household income around $300k (=$500k+ in today’s dollars) but also significant debt.
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Congress never lifted the ban on speaking fees or gave the justices a major raise.
But in the years that followed, Thomas accepted a stream of gifts from friends and acquaintances that defrayed living expenses large and small: private school tuition, vehicle batteries, tires.
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Here’s Ed Uihlein on the Birchers’ National Finance Committee in 1963.
The group saw Communist conspiracies everywhere, despised the New Deal, and famously attacked the “horrors of fluoridation.”
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The Birchers also viewed the civil rights movement as a Communist conspiracy. Here’s a typical newsletter from the early '60s denouncing civil rights and attacking MLK’s upcoming March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom:
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The NYPD treats requests for body cam footage like it does Freedom of Information requests: systematic non-compliance with the rules, with zero consequences
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3/ We found that, in the first year of the tax break alone, just 82 super-rich households collectively walked away with more than *$1 billion* in total savings.
The new deduction lasts for eight years.
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And thanks to historians
@eh_miller
@MattDallek
@anaauslouisiana
@johnshuntington
@DavidAstinWalsh
for help wading through the archives of the mid-century right.
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In the same period, Thomas also had spoken repeatedly with a judge in charge of lobbying Congress about lifting the ban on taking speaking fees. If the ban had been lifted, it would have unlocked another source of income for the justices.
Sen. McConnell pushed to lift the ban.
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Tax experts said Collins' abandoning her amendment to reform carried interest netted tens of millions of dollars in tax savings for Steve Schwarzman of
@Blackstone
alone. He has now given $2 million to the pro-Collins super PAC.
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Senators
@SenatorDurbin
and
@SenWhitehouse
announce July 20 vote on bill that would tighten Supreme Court ethics and recusal rules
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Chatter that Thomas was dissatisfied about money circulated through conservative legal circles.
The Thomases had borrowed more than 98% of the price of their home in the ‘90s. They regularly borrowed more, including a $100k credit line and a consumer loan of up to $50k.
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NEW: Internal Facebook emails show how Sheryl Sandberg OK’d a censorship request from an authoritarian government.
Execs cited “p.r. fires" and acceded to Turkish request to pull page of Kurdish party.
w/
@jackgillum
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And Dick Uihlein named his foundation after his father. Today, the Ed Uihlein Family Foundation funds a range of groups that push questionable election fraud claims, attack “transgender ideology.” From
@SollenbergerRC
:
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New:
More than four million people will be getting cash restitution payments from Intuit in the coming months as part of a $141 million settlement with the states sparked by our reporting on TurboTax “free.”
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We’re still reporting. Know something we should about the Supreme Court? Get in touch at justin
@propublica
.org or by Signal/WhatsApp at 774-826-6240.
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The congressman, now retired, was left concerned Thomas might leave the court.
“His importance as a conservative was paramount,” he told us. “We wanted to make sure he felt comfortable in his job and he was being paid properly.”
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2/ The pass-through deduction was a key part of Trump’s 2017 tax overhaul, pitched as helping “Main Street.”
Among the biggest winners: media mogul Michael Bloomberg, the family that owns engineering giant Bechtel, and the heirs of Houston pipeline billionaire Dan Duncan.
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He had spent most of his career in the government, rather than high-paying law firms and unlike some colleagues, he didn’t come from family money. Justice Ginsburg, for example, was married to a high-paid tax lawyer; Justice Breyer to the daughter of a British lord.
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Ed Uihlein also sponsored a 1962 Chicago speech by Edwin Walker, a former general turned segregationist rabble rouser.
Here’s Walker in late 1961 talking up the “Southern triumph” over Reconstruction and “the tyranny within our own white race," via
@eh_miller
's book:
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Thomas and Crow did not respond to our questions for this story.
Story by me
@js_kaplan
@Amierjeski
+
@BrettMmurphy
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As we noted, Dick Uihlein’s dad was a big donor in the ‘60s to the John Birch Society, the group known for its conspiratorial anti-communism and militant opposition to civil rights
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The IRS has been so gutted it turned to Intuit to make a crucial stimulus payment tool.
On the left, what Intuit made for .
On the right, what Intuit made for , with multiple trapdoors to paid products.
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Of course, that was 40+ years ago. But it turns out there’s still a Uihlein-Birch connection today:
The family’s popular shipping supplies company,
@Uline
, is a regular advertiser in the Birchers’ magazine, The New American.
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A detail from today’s story showing the extent to which Justice Thomas’ travel has been privatized and paid for by the rich: We found he took Harlan Crow’s private jet from DC to New Haven and back for a 3-hour visit to tour a room at Yale Law where his portrait was to be hung
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This seems new: Justice Alito tells WSJ editorial page he merely *voluntarily* follows the Ethics in Government Act, the disclosure law which explicitly applies to Supreme Court justices
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The elder Uihlein was also contributor to the 29168 presidential campaign of segregationist George Wallace, according to files kept by the Anti-Defamation League.
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Thanks to ProPublica General Counsel Jeremy Kutner for handling the FOIA litigation that produced this Treasury email detailing Collins dropping her proposal to close the carried interest loophole just a day after introducing it
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8/ In the final rush to finish the Trump tax bill, someone inserted eight words that had not been in either the House or Senate versions.
The language extended the new deduction to engineering firms, guaranteeing the Bechtels a massive tax cut.
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Dick and Liz Uihlein still revere Ed, who died in 2005.
Liz even wrote a tribute to the “wise” Ed in the back of the
@Uline
catalog this year, pining for “an easier time” when kids were raised “with a sharp moral compass.”
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One law professor who has vacationed with Thomas and Harlan Crow said he doesn’t believe Crow is trying to influence Thomas’ views. Instead, “He views Thomas as a Supreme Court justice as having a limited salary,” the professor said. “So he provides benefits for him.”
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Senate Judiciary Chair: post-recess, "the Senate Judiciary Committee will mark up Supreme Court ethics legislation"
The Supreme Court is in an ethical crisis of its own making due to the acceptance of lavish gifts from parties with business before the Court that several Justices have not disclosed.
The reputation and credibility of the Court are at stake.
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Recall, Barr's DOJ loosened the agency's longstanding election non-interference rules back in October
NEW: Attorney General Bill Barr has authorized federal prosecutors across the U.S. to pursue “substantial allegations of voting and vote tabulation irregularities” before the election is certified, despite there being little evidence of fraud.
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