Clarence Thomas’s Friendship With Magnate Puts Focus on Ethics

A multimillion-dollar project to preserve a seafood cannery in Pin Point, Ga., highlights an unusual, and ethically sensitive, friendship between the Supreme Court justice, Clarence Thomas, and Harlan Crow, a Dallas real estate magnate and a major contributor to conservative causes. Since the two men met, Mr. Crow has done many favors for the justice and his wife, Virginia. In several instances, reports of Mr. Crow’s largess has provoked controversy and questions, adding fuel to a debate about Supreme Court ethics. But Mr. Crow’s financing of the cannery museum, his largest and previously unreported act of generosity, raises the sharpest questions yet — both about Justice Thomas’s extrajudicial activities and about the extent to which the justices should remain exempt from the code of conduct.
Although the Supreme Court is not bound by the code, justices have said they adhere to it. Justice Thomas, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment. Mr. Crow also would not comment.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/us/politics/19thomas.html?emc=na

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