Billionaire GOP donor slams damning Clarence Thomas reports as a 'political hit job'

Critics of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) to former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann have been calling for his impeachment or resignation in response to a damning series of reports from ProPublica. First, ProPublica reported that Thomas, for over 20 years, had "been treated to luxury vacations" by billionaire GOP donor Harlan Crow and failed to report it.

Subsequently, ProPublica reported that Thomas had sold property in Georgia to Crow and didn't report that either. And on Thursday, May 4, ProPublica reported that Crow had paid thousands of dollars in boarding school tuition for the far-right justice's grandnephew Mark Martin.

Crow vigorously defended his relationship with Thomas in an interview with the Dallas Morning News and attacked ProPublica's reporting as a "political hit job."

The billionaire Republican told the Morning News, "I don't think the media cares really much about Harlan Crow, and I think they're right. They shouldn't care much about Harlan Crow. But I think that the media, and this ProPublica group in particular, funded by leftists, has an agenda to destabilize the (Supreme) Court."

Crow continued, "What they've done is not truthful. It lacks integrity. They've done a pretty good job in the last week or two of unfairly slamming me and more importantly than that, unfairly slamming Justice Thomas."

But ProPublica Editor-In-Chief Stephen Engelberg is pushing back against Crow's claims that the publication's Thomas/Crow reporting has partisan motivations.

Engelberg told the Morning News, "As investigative journalists, our job is to unearth the facts. If Harlan Crow disputes the accuracy of our reporting involving Justice Clarence Thomas, we invite him to provide us with the details so we can correct any inaccuracies."

Engelberg went on to say, "As investigative journalists, our job is to unearth the facts. It's worth noting that he and Justice Thomas were given detailed, written questions in advance of our stories. Thomas declined to respond. Crow's answers were included in full. He questioned none of the facts we reported."