Billionaire Harlan Crow ALSO paid for Clarence Thomas’ grand-nephew to go to private school

Billionaire Harlan Crow helped pay tuition for a relative of Clarence Thomas, who was treated “like a son” by the Supreme Court judge, according to the latest revelation about Thomas’s relationship with the mega-donor.

News of Crow’s latest generosity in favor of justice and his family comes out in a report ProPublicwho obtained a statement showing that Crow paid tuition for Mark Martin, Thomas’ second cousin, who lived with him at his home in Washington, D.C.

The statement showed a payment of $6,200 as of July 2009 from Crow’s company, Crow Holdings.

The payment was to attend the private boarding school Hidden Lake Academy, and a former administrator told the publication that Crow “also took the bill” for other tuition payments, along with tuition at another school, Randolph-Macon Academy in Virginia. Tuition ran $6,000 a month.

The total cost would have reached $150,000 to cover four years at both private schools.

The latest revelation about the billionaire real estate developer comes days after a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, where Senator Richard Durbin chairperson noted that the Supreme Court has no formal code of ethics for other justices to follow.

“Here’s the problem: the Supreme Court is not bound by these rules,” Durbin said.

Crow called Thomas a dear friend and got to know him after he joined the Supreme Court. Crow is a real estate mogul from Dallas

The publication interviewed Martin and former classmates, leaving little doubt that he attended both private institutions.

A statement from Crow, a top donor to Republican causes who also footed the bill for private jet travel, a mega yacht and a trip to Indonesia for Thomas, did not dispute the story but spoke of his general support for helping “at-risk youth.”

“Harlan Crow has long been passionate about the importance of quality education and giving back to the less fortunate, especially at-risk youth,” he said, without explicitly naming Thomas’s relative, who would later be hired by justice.

“It is disappointing that those with partisan political interests would try to turn helping at-risk youth with college tuition into something outrageous or political.”

Crow and his wife have “supported many young Americans” at “a variety of schools, including his alma mater,” the Randolph-Macon Academy, a military-style private school in Virginia.

Crow and Thomas met in the 1990s, a few years after Thomas joined the Supreme Court, and the two have had a close relationship ever since – Crow is said to have once given Thomas’ wife Ginni $500,000 to support a Tea Party-related group to establish.

The 74-year-old billionaire real estate developer who has lavished Thomas with gifts and travel is the chairman of a highly successful private investment firm, Crow Holdings, with nearly $29 billion in holdings, according to the Dallas Morning News.

He has donated millions to Republican campaigns and conservative groups. He also presented Thomas with a range of unusual gifts, such as a bust of Abraham Lincoln and a $19,000 bible that once belonged to Frederick Douglass.

One earlier ProPublic report revealed that Thomas used luxury jets, a mega yacht and stunning retreats all owned by the same real estate mogul.

Thomas said in an earlier statement: “Harlan and Kathy Crow are among our dearest friends, and we have been friends for over twenty-five years.

“As friends do, in the more than a quarter of a century we’ve known them, we’ve been on a number of family trips with them,” he continued.

There was also a payment to go to the Hidden Lake Academy private boarding school in the foothills of Northern Virginia

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has gone on lavish vacations with real estate mogul Harlan Crow, including an adventure to Indonesia aboard a mega yacht and private jet. A newly revealed document indicates that Crow paid $6,200 to a private academy where Thomas’ second cousin went to school

Thomas made annual trips to Topridge, Crow’s estate in the Adirondacks

The retreat offers boating and fishing opportunities and features exotic furnishings

“At the beginning of my tenure on the Court, I sought the advice of my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was told that this kind of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who had no business before the Court, could not be reported. I have tried to follow that advice throughout my tenure and have always tried to comply with disclosure guidelines.”

However, it is not at all clear that such a hospitality exemption would apply to the payment of tuition fees.

Judges are required to declare income and gifts of value on the form. Federal tax laws also require the payment of taxes on gifts in excess of a federal gift tax limitwhich was $12,000 a year at the time.

Thomas did not list the payment on his annual financial disclosure, although he did report an “educational gift to Mark Martin” from another friend, Earl and Louise Dixon.

Crow has not been a party to a Supreme Court lawsuit, but has been involved with two conservative groups involved in filing supporting orders in cases coming before the Supreme Court.

Besides politics, Crow has taken a particular interest in history — the backyard of his $24 million Dallas residence is dominated by old statues of dictators he’s collected from fallen regimes, including Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, according to the New York Times. His library also contains Hitler memorabilia, including a signed copy of Mein Kampf.