Harlan Crow lawyer agrees to speak with panel on Clarence Thomas gifts

A lawyer for the Republican billionaire donor Harlan Crow has agreed to speak with staff members of the Senate Judiciary Committee about Crow’s relationship with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, according to a letter obtained by NBC News.

Michael D. Bopp, Crow’s attorney, told Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., in a letter Monday that although “concerns” remain about lawmakers’ authority to investigate the matter, the committee plays an “important role in formulating legislation concerning our federal courts system,” and he “would welcome a discussion with your staff.”

Bopp’s letter Monday comes after he again refused to give Senate Judiciary Democrats information about Thomas’ relationship with the billionaire businessman last month. In a May letter to Durbin, Bopp wrote that he believes the committee doesn’t have the authority to “investigate Mr. Crow’s personal friendship with Justice Clarence Thomas” and that Congress “does not have the constitutional power to impose ethics rules and standards on the Supreme Court.”

Durbin and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., swiftly pushed back at Bopp’s assertions in a follow-up letter dated May 26, arguing that the lawyer provided an inadequate response to their request.

“Your explanation rested on a flawed assessment of Congress’s Article I oversight authority; a cramped reading of Congress’s constitutional authority to legislate in the area of government ethics; and a wholly misplaced view of the separation of powers, a doctrine that is implicated when Congress requests information from coordinate branches of government, not private individuals,” Durbin and Whitehouse wrote. “You also repeatedly conflated personal hospitality with the use of corporate-owned property, which highlights one of the key issues the Committee seeks to address through legislation.”

Bopp’s refusal to comply with the committee mirrored what he told the Senate Finance Committee last month, arguing that the panel lacks a legislative purpose in its request for a list of gifts that Crow had given Thomas.

Thomas has drawn scrutiny over allegations reported by ProPublica that he did not properly disclose trips and gifts paid for by Crow, the sale of Thomas’ and his relatives’ properties to Crow and tuition that Crow paid for one of the justice’s relatives.

Thomas said after ProPublic’s reports that he had been advised that the trips and gifts were “personal hospitality from close personal friends” and that he was under the impression they did not have to be reported in disclosures.

Durbin and other Democrats on the Judiciary Committee asked Crow to provide an itemized list of gifts worth more than $415 that he gave to Thomas or any other justices or their family members. They also asked Crow to provide a full list of real estate transactions, transportation, lodging and admission to private clubs he might have provided.

Reached for comment by NBC News Tuesday morning, a Senate Judiciary Committee aide said that Bopp’s latest letter “did not provide a meaningful response” to the panel’s request and that Durbin and Whitehouse will soon release a statement in response, calling the letter not “a good-faith offer.”

“Committee staff already has been in contact with Mr. Crow’s lawyer for weeks, and the letter spends six pages brazenly and incorrectly claiming Congress has no authority to legislate or conduct oversight in this space — and one sentence offering to keep in touch,” the aide said.

“That is not a meaningful response to the Committee’s legitimate information requests, nor is it a unique offer to meet with staff,” the aide added.

The Supreme Court and Thomas did not respond to NBC News’ request for comment.