US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has said he believed luxury trips taken with a billionaire Republican donor followed guidelines.
A ProPublica report earlier this week said Mr Thomas had accepted vacations from real estate mogul Harlan Crow nearly every year for two decades.
Supreme Court justices are required to file annual disclosures of gifts.
Mr Thomas said that he had been led to believe that “this sort of personal hospitality” did not apply.
According to ProPublica, the trips included several on Mr Crow’s luxury yacht and private plane, as well as a week spent every summer in the Adirondack mountains.
One trip, to Indonesia in 2019, may have cost as much as $500,000 (£402,725), according to the non-profit news website.
In a statement on Friday, Mr Thomas said that he had sought “guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary” and was told that “that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable”.
“I have endeavoured to follow that counsel throughout my tenure, and have always sought to comply with the disclosure guidelines,” the statement added.
Mr Thomas described Mr Crow and his wife Kathy Crow as “among our dearest friends, and we have been friends for over twenty-five years”.
Virginia Canter, a former government ethics lawyer who served under Democratic and Republican administrations alike, told BBC News there was no indication Mr Thomas sought a formal opinion on the matter.
“There’s no accountability for the court… each justice seems to decide for themselves who they’re going to go for advice and what rules apply,” the lawyer, who spoke with ProPublica for its report, added.
BBC News has not independently verified ProPublica’s reporting, which sought to contrast Mr Thomas’s public comments with lavish details of the trips and gifts. (BBC)
