Thomas's income from the defunct real estate firm

Over the past two decades, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has reported in required financial disclosures that his family received hundreds of thousands of dollars in rental income from a firm called Ginger, Ltd., Partnership. But that company - a Nebraska real estate company founded in the 1980s by his wife and her relatives - hasn't existed since 2006. According to state registration records, the family real estate was closed that year and a separate firm was created. According to cadastral records, a new firm with a similar name took over the closed company's land-rental business.

Since then, Thomas has continued to report income from the defunct company - between $50,000 and $100,000 annually in recent years - and there is no mention of the new firm, Ginger Holdings, LLC, on the forms. A previously unreported error can be attributed to an error in the documents. But this is one of a series of errors and omissions Thomas has made in required annual financial reports over the past several decades, as a review of those records shows. Together, they raise questions about how seriously Thomas takes the need to accurately report details about his finances to the public.

The history of Thomas's declarations

The history of Thomas' declarations is under scrutiny after ProPublica reported this month that the Texas billionaire gave him lavish vacations and also bought a home in Georgia, where his mother lives, from Thomas and his relatives, a transaction that was not disclosed in the documents. Thomas said in a statement that his colleagues, whom he did not name, told him he did not need to report the leaves and that he had always tried to comply with mandatory disclosure rules. He has not discussed the deal publicly.

In 2011, after the watchdog group Common Cause raised red flags, Thomas updated years of his financial records to include employment information for his wife, conservative activist Virginia "Ginny" Thomas. At that time, he stated that he did not understand the filing instructions. In 2020, he had to revise his returns after another watchdog group found that he failed to list travel reimbursements for speaking engagements at two law schools.

Legal ethics expert Stephen Gillers said this sequence of errors is troubling. "Any presumed support for Thomas's integrity and commitment to upholding the law is gone. His assurances and promises cannot be trusted. Is there anything else? What is the full story? The nation needs to be known," he said. "It takes all three branches of government to investigate Thomas' compliance or noncompliance with federal ethics law.

Thomas did not respond to questions emailed through a court spokesman. His wife also did not respond to requests for comment.

Income from the firm Ginger, Ltd, Partnership

Thomas's income from the firm he describes as "Ginger, Ltd., Partnership" on his financial statements has grown significantly over the past decade, although the exact amounts are unknown because the forms require only ranges to be reported. In all, he claimed to have received between $270,000 and $750,000 from the firm since 2006, describing it as "rent." Thomas' salary as a judge this year is $285,000.

The company's roots go back to two suburban neighborhoods developed decades ago by the deceased parents of Ginnie Thomas in a community in Douglas County, near Omaha.

Ginger Limited Partnership was formed in 1982 to sell and rent real estate, state records show, and its partners were Ginnie Thomas, her parents and her three siblings. The firm owned and leased land in two neighborhoods, Ginger Woods and Ginger Cove, collecting annual rent from each parcel of land occupied, according to copies of leases kept at the county office.

When he was nominated to a federal appeals court in 1990, Thomas listed the firm on a financial statement as one of his wife's assets, worth $15,000 at the time.

The firm was liquidated in March 2006. Around the same time, Ginger Holdings, LLC was formed in Nebraska, according to state records that indicate the same business address as the closed company and the name Joanne K. Elliott, sister of Ginnie Thomas, as manager.

In the same month, leases for more than 200 residential lots in Ginger Woods and Ginger Cove were transferred from Ginger Limited Partnership to Ginger Holdings, LLC, Douglas County cadastral records show.

On the phone, Elliott referred questions about the two companies to Ginnie Thomas.

"You can call her and she can answer anything she wants you to know," Elliott said before hanging up.

Ginnie Thomas is not listed in public records pertaining to Ginger Holdings, LLC.

In her most recent 2021 tax return, Thomas estimated her family's interest in Ginger Limited Partnership, a closed firm, at between $250,000 and $500,000. He reported income from it of between $50,000 and $100,000 that year.

Disclosure requirements and challenges

On Friday, Democratic congressmen who oversee the federal courts cited Thomas' "apparent pattern of failing to comply with disclosure requirements" and called on the Judicial Conference, the body that develops policy for the federal courts, to refer him to the attorney general for investigation for violating federal ethics law.

In addition to recent revelations about Thomas' financial relationship with Texas billionaire Harlan Crowe, they cited a period in the 2000s when Thomas failed to disclose his wife's employment as required by law until it was reported by watchdog group Common Cause.

Ginnie Thomas earned more than $686,000 from the conservative Heritage Foundation from 2003 to 2007, according to the nonprofit organization's tax forms. Clarence Thomas checked the "missing" box for his wife's income during this period. He did the same in 2008 and 2009 when she worked at conservative Hillsdale College.

Thomas admitted the mistake when he corrected his reports in 2011. He wrote that the information was "inadvertently omitted due to a misunderstanding of filing instructions. "

In some years prior to these omissions, however, Thomas had correctly reported his wife's employment.

Thomas failed to report the sale of three Georgia Crow homes in 2014, and continued to report that he owned a share of those homes as of 2015, his returns show. In addition, beginning in 2010, his returns described the homes as being in Liberty County, Georgia, although they were actually in Chatham County.

Thomas also failed to list reimbursements for transportation, meals, and lodging while teaching at universities in Kansas and Georgia in 2018. After the omission was noted by the nonprofit organization Fix the Court, Thomas corrected his return for this year. He also corrected his 2017 tax return, on which he failed to report similar reimbursements while teaching at Creighton Law School, his wife's diamond mater.

Jonathan O'Connell and Alice Crites collaborated on this article.