Nonprofit news outlet ProPublica, which published multiple stories detailing Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ alleged ethics violations, has many of the same donors as multiple groups actively campaigning for Thomas to be investigated or to resign, according to tax documents reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Over the past few months, ProPublica has published several investigations into Clarence Thomas’ relationship with his friend, the billionaire real estate developer Harlan Crow. The stories detailed expensive trips Thomas took with Crow, Crow’s purchase of Thomas’ mothers home and Crow’s paying of private school tuition for Thomas’ grandnephew. At the same time, several of ProPublica’s top donors are also major financiers of left-wing groups running campaigns against Thomas. This includes organizations pushing for Thomas to be investigated in the wake of ProPublica’s reporting.
“It is no coincidence that several organizations smearing Justice Thomas are funded generously by many of the same donors,” Parker Thayer, an investigative researcher at Capital Research Center, told the DCNF. “The ‘pop-up’ public pressure campaign, where just a few donors pay dozens of ‘grassroots’ activist groups to give the appearance of broad public support for a particular issue, has long been a favored tactic of the Left’s wealthy special interests.”