No 'plausible excuse': Experts say Justice Thomas 'breaks the law' and thinks he’s 'immune to consequences'

In the wake of revelations about Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas' failure to disclose a forgiven loan in excess of a quarter million dollars, one legal ethics expert believes the longtime judge feels emboldened to act with impunity.

Earlier this week, a Senate Finance Committee investigation found that Justice Thomas' previous financial disclosure statements omitted what was effectively a gift from wealthy businessman Anthony Welters: A luxury recreational vehicle worth approximately $267,000. While Thomas made several interest payments on the loan, it remains unclear how much of the original loan principal was paid before it was forgiven.

New York University law professor Stephen Gillers, who specializes in legal ethics, recently told Reuters that he believes Thomas' pattern of failing to disclose significant gifts from wealthy benefactors is no accident.

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"Thomas's votes can send someone to prison for life or financially destroy them for breaking the law," Gillers said. "Yet he repeatedly breaks the law, confident that he is immune to consequences."

While Thomas has previously been subjected to scrutiny over various gifts from conservative billionaire Harlan Crow, another legal ethics expert said the RV loan was "more significant than the past failures."

"There isn't even a plausible excuse this time," Northwestern University law professor Steven Lubet told Reuters. "The directions could not be more clear. It's a quarter of a million dollars — it's hard to attribute that to inadvertence."

In addition to law professors, Thomas' behavior has also not gone unnoticed by his colleagues in the judicial profession. Nancy Gertner, a retired former US District Judge for the District of Massachusetts, recently wrote an essay for WBUR detailing how Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society helped Thomas and other conservative judges skate around a longstanding ethics statute preventing judges from accepting compensation for speeches and pubic appearances.

READ MORE: Ex-judge: Clarence Thomas RV loan another example of justice doing an 'end run' around ethics rules

"No new ethical rules need to be promulgated, or codes enacted on this subject. It exists right now, as it has since 1989," Gertner wrote. "But Thomas and Leo are doing an end run around it, accomplishing indirectly what the law prohibits them from doing directly. And no one is stopping them."