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Justice Clarence Thomas took undisclosed trip aboard Harlan Crow’s private jet in 2010, senator says
Washington — Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas did not disclose travel aboard a private jet provided by Republican megadonor Harlan Crow in 2010, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee revealed in a letter Monday.
Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said international flight records from U.S. Customs and Border Protection show that Thomas and his wife, Ginni, flew from Hawaii to New Zealand on Crow’s private jet in November 2010 and returned on the plane a week later. The flight manifest shows Crow was also a passenger on the flights, Wyden told Michael Bopp, Crow’s lawyer.
Thomas did not disclose the travel aboard the jet on his annual financial disclosure forms.
Wyden is demanding information from Crow not only about the November 2010 travel, but also about trips Thomas took on the Michaela Rose, Crow’s yacht, and other financial records.
Michael Zona, a spokesman for Crow, said his lawyers have already addressed Wyden’s inquiries, “which have no legal basis and are only intended to harass a private citizen.” He accused the Democratic senator of abusing the Senate Finance Committee’s powers to advance a “politically motivated campaign” targeting the Supreme Court.
“Mr. Crow and his businesses are in good standing with the IRS,” he said. “He has always followed applicable tax law as advised by national accounting firms who serve as his tax advisors.”
The statement referred Wyden to previous correspondence from Crow’s lawyers. A request for comment from Thomas was not immediately returned.
Wyden’s demand for more information from Crow is part of an investigation he launched into his relationship with Thomas and travel the justice has accepted from the wealthy benefactor. Thomas said last year that he and Crow have been friends for more than two decades, and the justice maintained that he had been advised he did not have to report the travel under disclosure guidelines.
He pledged to comply with new guidelines from the Judicial Conference, changed in March 2023, about personal hospitality.
Thomas included in his 2023 financial disclosure report trips aboard Crow’s private jet and a stay at his property in the Adirondacks. He also included details about a 2014 real estate transaction with Crow, which had been uncovered by the investigative news outlet ProPublica last year.
In his latest disclosure report, made public in June, Thomas included an amendment to list two trips he took with Crow in 2019 to Bali and Monte Rio, California.
But Senate Democrats have said they still do not have a complete picture of the travel Thomas received from Crow. The Senate Judiciary Committee revealed in June that Thomas took three undisclosed trips aboard Crow’s private jet, including to Kalispell, Montana, near Glacier National Park, in 2017; and roundtrip flights to Savannah, Georgia, in 2019 and San Jose, California, in 2021. Wyden told Crow’s lawyer in his latest letter that he is still seeking to understand the “means and scale” of his client’s “undisclosed largesse” to Thomas.
“I am deeply concerned that Mr. Crow may have been showering a public official with extravagant gifts, then writing off those gifts to lower his tax bill,” he wrote. “This concern is only heightened by the committee’s recent discovery of additional undisclosed international travel on Mr. Crow’s private jet by Justice Thomas.”
In addition to the private jet travel in 2010, Wyden said Thomas has not disclosed other trips, including aboard the Michaela Rose in Greece and New Zealand, which was reported by ProPublica last year. The senator said a relative of Thomas’ witnessed the justice travel on the yacht in the Caribbean, Russia and the Baltics, trips that were not listed on his financial disclosure forms.
The Oregon Democrat said additional information is necessary to inform several bills his committee is working on, including reforms to the tax code, audit requirements for Supreme Court justices and ethics reform that would bolster disclosure rules for Supreme Court justices.
“This is not a particularly complicated matter,” Wyden said. “Mr. Crow could easily clarify for the committee whether tax deductions were claimed on superyacht and private jet use by Justice Thomas, but he refuses to do so.”
In the wake of revelations about Thomas’ ties to Crow, congressional Democrats have called for reforms at the Supreme Court. President Biden last week offered three proposals, two of which would require legislation approved by Congress: 18-year term limits for justices and an enforceable, binding code of conduct.
In response to pressure from Democrats on Capitol Hill, the Supreme Court implemented its own ethics rules in November, but it does not include an enforcement mechanism.
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Federal judge bars Trump from implementing proof of citizenship requirement to vote
A federal judge on Wednesday permanently barred President Donald Trump’s administration from implementing most of his first executive order on elections, part of which sought to require people to show documentary proof of citizenship when they register to vote.
The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper in Boston effectively converts a preliminary injunction she issued a year ago, in which she temporarily blocked many of Trump’s efforts to overhaul elections, into a permanent ban.
Casper rejected the Republican administration’s argument that the lawsuit to block the changes brought by Democratic state attorneys general was premature because the rules had yet to be put in place. Instead, she agreed that the Constitution gives states and Congress the authority to regulate elections, and that Trump’s requirements violated the separation of powers.
The Constitution “does not grant the President any specific powers over elections,” wrote Casper.
Among other proposed changes, Trump’s order would have required people to provide documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote, prevented mail ballots from being counted if they arrive after Election Day, even if they were postmarked by then, and punished states that failed to comply by withholding certain federal money.
In a statement, New York Attorney General Letitia James said she was grateful the court had blocked Trump’s “unconstitutional attempt to seize control of our elections” and would continue to defend voting rights in this year’s midterm elections.
“Generations of Americans fought tirelessly for the right to vote, and we honor their legacy by protecting that right against anyone who tries to undermine it,” said James, a Democrat.
A voter casts a ballot during New York’s primary election on Tuesday, June 23, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, whose state was the lead plaintiff in the case, said the ruling reaffirmed the constitutional principle that it s up to the states and Congress to set election rules.
“While we are proud of this result, we are clear-eyed that President Trump’s attacks on voting rights and our elections show no signs of slowing down,” Bonta, a Democrat, said in a statement. “So let me be clear: we will keep fighting back every step of the way.”
Requests for comment sent to the White House and he U.S. Department of Justice were not immediately returned.
The ruling was the latest in a series against the elections executive order Trump signed just months after taking office for his second term. The Republican president has since signed another executive order on elections that seeks to create a national voter list and limit mail balloting. That directive also faces multiple legal challenges.
Last fall, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., overseeing a separate challenge to the first election executive order by civil rights and Democratic Party-aligned groups blocked the government from taking steps to include the proof-of-citizenship requirement on the federal voter registration form. That judge later barred Trump’s defense secretary from requiring documentary proof of citizenship when military personnel register to vote or request ballots.
In an apparent nod to the difficulty of implementing a proof-of-citizen requirement by executive order, Trump is pushing legislation in the Republican-controlled Congress to create such a mandate. The SAVE America Act has passed the House but has stalled in the Senate, leading Trump to advocate for eliminating the filibuster that is blocking the legislation.
On Wednesday, he abruptly canceled the expected signing of a bipartisan housing bill, saying he would not sign legislation until Congress passes his proof of citizenship requirement for voting.
The president and many of his Republican allies have been promoting the narrative that voting by noncitizens is a major problem, when in fact it’s quite rare. The federal voter registration form already requires people to attest that they are U.S. citizens. Violating that is punishable as a felony that can lead to prison or deportation.
In another major voting case, the U.S. Supreme Court is due to issue an opinion soon on whether mail ballots must arrive by Election Day. That could immediately change the rules in 14 states that allow grace periods ranging from days to weeks if the ballots are postmarked by Election Day.
Casper, who was nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama, is the chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
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Video: Mamdani Allies Sweep New York Primaries
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transcript
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Mamdani Allies Sweep New York Primaries
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s progressive coalition had a big night on Tuesday. Brad Lander, Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez won their Democratic House primaries.
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“I see a New York that we can all afford. I see a New York that truly invests in its babies, not bombs.” Reporter: “What’s the first thing you’re looking forward to doing in Congress?” “Well, tomorrow — thank you — I mean, tomorrow morning, you know, I’m going to be back at 26 Federal Plaza doing court watching, and we want to carry that into Congress as well.”
By Julie Yoon
June 24, 2026
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Appeals court allows Trump administration expanded use of speedy deportations
A massive 826,780-square-foot warehouse sits illuminated Feb. 12, 2026, in the El Paso suburb of Socorro, Texas, that was recently purchased by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for $122.8 million.
Morgan Lee/AP
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Morgan Lee/AP
A federal appeals court on Tuesday allowed the Trump administration to resume carrying out speedy deportations of undocumented migrants throughout the United States, not just near the border.

A divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit threw out a lower court decision that temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s expanded use of expedited removal. The ruling was a big victory for the Republican administration, which views the expansion of so-called expedited removal as a key tool for carrying out its mass deportation policy.
Expedited removal — quick deportation without a chance to appear before a judge — has previously been applied to migrants arriving by sea or caught at or near the border shortly after crossing.
In January, Trump expanded its use to undocumented migrants all over the United States. Immigration agents began whisking migrants away from courthouses where they had gone for immigration proceedings and then removing them from the country within days.
“The Trump administration’s push for fast-track deportations will subject people to an unfair and error-prone system,” Anand Balakrishnan, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement.
Balakrishnan represented plaintiffs in arguments before the appellate panel and said its ruling “undermines the fundamental principle that people receive due process when the government seeks to deport them.”

DC Circuit Judge Justin R. Walker, one of the judges on the panel, said the plaintiffs had not shown the expanded use of expedited removal violated due process rights. Immigrants received notice of removal proceedings and were given a chance to respond, he wrote in his opinion.
Walker and the second judge in the majority, Neomi Rao, were appointed by Trump. The third judge on the panel was appointed by President Barack Obama, a Democrat.
Walker said there was no requirement that the administration inform immigrants that they can avoid expedited removal if they can show they have been in the United States for more than two years.
“The constitutional requirement is notice of the action the government is taking and the grounds for it, plus an opportunity to respond,” he wrote, adding that the plaintiffs’ “contrary reasoning would require immigration officers to provide what amounts to legal advice.”
Walker and Rao vacated an order by U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb that put the expanded use of expedited removal on hold. Cobb, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, a Democrat, ruled in August that the administration had not developed procedures to ensure migrants were not wrongly deported under the expedited process.

The plaintiffs had put forward “substantial evidence” that the expedited removal process, on the contrary, carried a high risk of error when applied more broadly, Cobb said. The ruling cited examples of people who had lived in the U.S. for far longer than two years but were still ordered to be removed in expedited proceedings.
In his opinion, Walker acknowledged evidence of such errors, but said they resulted from “individual officers’ failure to follow the law — not defects in the written directives under review or the procedures they incorporate.”
The Trump administration has argued that its expansion of expedited removal includes protections to prevent arbitrary removal. In a court filing in October, Justice Department attorneys said Cobb’s ruling was an “egregious error” that was depriving the administration of an “essential tool to combat the unprecedented surge of illegal immigration over the past few years” and efficiently deport potentially millions of people.
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Federal judge bars Trump from implementing proof of citizenship requirement to vote