Clarence Thomas's $267,230 R.V. and the Friend Who Financed It

[Zorro]

The vehicle is a key part of the justice’s just-folks persona. It’s also a luxury motor coach that was funded by someone else’s money.

Justice Clarence Thomas met the recreational vehicle of his dreams in Phoenix, on a November Friday in 1999.

With some time to kill before an event that night, he headed to a dealership just west of the airport. There sat a used Prevost Le Mirage XL Marathon, eight years old and 40 feet long, with orange flames licking down the sides. In the words of one of his biographers, “he kicked the tires and climbed aboard,” then quickly negotiated a handshake deal. A few weeks later, Justice Thomas drove his new motor coach off the lot and into his everyman, up-by-the-bootstraps self-mythology.

There he is behind the wheel during a rare 2007 interview with “60 Minutes,” talking about how the steel-clad converted bus allows him to escape the “meanness that you see in Washington.” He regularly slips into his speeches his love of driving it through the American heartland — “the part we fly over.” And in a documentary financed by conservative admirers, Justice Thomas, who was born into poverty in Georgia, waxes rhapsodic about the familiarity of spending time with the regular folks he meets along the way in R.V. parks and Walmart parking lots.

“I don’t have any problem with going to Europe, but I prefer the United States, and I prefer seeing the regular parts of the United States,” he told the filmmakers, adding: “There’s something normal to me about it. I come from regular stock, and I prefer being around that.”

But there is an untold, and far more complex, back story to Justice Thomas’s R.V. — one that not only undercuts the mythology but also leaves unanswered a host of questions about whether the justice received, and failed to disclose, a lavish gift from a wealthy friend.

His Prevost Marathon cost $267,230, according to title history records obtained by The New York Times. And Justice Thomas, who in the ensuing years would tell friends how he had scrimped and saved to afford the motor coach, did not buy it on his own. In fact, the purchase was underwritten, at least in part, by Anthony Welters, a close friend who made his fortune in the health care industry.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/05/us/clarence-thomas-rv-anthony-welters.html?unlocked_article_code=91TGzVPCPPCehiz0--OzHCamWbu8MjGV2bKOB7AZ-kmfuOXax4AQ8BKNoKVi82XLnH46TcKDRrL4MRXcA79QuP6vjzJc_b-TnedKjQ9pfMmdBDwCUQYMdXTBJ1CYPBch62IoPZUH8mM5c3Xh4BLUmGx3Ldvra-va5aTpLaagPbAXXoI7bsZVL6ENm-8I3AGKHcRMIgQGvWGmRCXiOkdUDLxk5S2j4GXnHWC08VMVieXVKusX7ZSwUBfdTo3-dis8a1sAJLf5V4zPA-8B7rJoUj301_3NMo2mhaYRvl16xuj41V5hXyj1Eqk9WTm1JkDlN9aCGx97aCxHt1oKhF6f18hAMdk6C0k&smid=url-share

[Botany]

1. "The purchase was underwritten, at least in part, by Anthony Welters ....

.... who made his fortune in the health care industry."


C. Thomas is bought and paid for and Mr. Welters is linked to Carlye Group too.

[MOMFUDSKI]

2. Clarence should

be LIVING in that thing down by the river after Congress gets done with him.

[brush]

3. So his corruption began way before the recent revelations.

Last edited Sat Aug 5, 2023, 01:19 PM - Edit history (1)

He's got his hand out and big money repubs with business before the court quite willing cross his palm with big bucks.

It's a mutual benefit society.

[malaise]

6. I always thought his R.V. tours across America were a nice smoke screen for the luxury trips

Another grifter tick.

[Goonch]

4. 👇👇👇👁️👁️

[Alexander Of Assyria]

5. Corruption is as massive as the corporate mass medias cone of silence around it.

Corporate media is…as corporate minded as a drug or weapons company.
Corruption, political or corporate, is another thing not mentioned in the corporate media much…obviously in every corporations self interest.

[Hortensis]

7. "financing that experts said a bank would have been unlikely to extend --

not only because Justice Thomas was already carrying a lot of debt, but because the Marathon brand’s high level of customization makes its used motor coaches difficult to value."

Mr. Welters told the Times that roughly 9 years later “the loan was satisfied" and sent The Times a photo of the title and a handwritten “lien release” date of Nov. 22, 2008.

“‘Satisfied’ doesn’t necessarily mean someone paid the loan back,” ... “‘Satisfied’ could also mean the lender formally forgave the debt, or otherwise just stopped pursuing repayment.”

Otherwise, silence from both men. This customized RV must have been really special. Would be interested in hearing more about Thomas's high level of debt. SCOTUS income inadequate to the standard of living he'd become accustomed to?

[Prof. P.E. Name]

8. This Guy's Actions Are Worthy of a Full FBI Investigation

The NY Times story needs more fleshing-out.

First, the vehicle was not a converted "Bus." All motor coach RV manufacturers then and now obtain vehicle shells from chassis manufacturers without seats and passenger windows that real buses have. These shells are then "converted" into rolling palaces and sell for up to $3 million by firms such as Marathon. For the authors to say it's a converted bus is to masque the exclusivity of the brand. I bet the Clar-Ginnie "bus" never had 40 seats and corresponding windows in it. Give you odds.

Second, it was garaged in one county in Vir-ginnie, but the Thomas' lived in another county in that state and might indicate some tax evasion, a fraud maybe.

Third, at 93,000 miles when purchased, the coach is just broken in. These things go a million miles when used commercially. Was it priced under FMV then?

Fourth, the "gifts" of $1,200 tires are understated by at least half.

Fifth, since this old buggy doesn't fit in your home's 7' high garage door. It needs a 12' plus overhead door in an industrial sized storage unit. Anyone gifting that?

Sixth, the Marathon web-site offers memberships in a club so "exclusive" that the RV sites are not open to the public and contain no pricing info. That's a far cry from the KOA frequent user discounts Clarence claims he enjoys.

Cigar, anyone?

[mahatmakanejeeves]

9. It was eight years old in 1999, and it still cost over a quarter-million. NT

[The Unmitigated Gall]

10. Shithole Clarence...

Poppy Bush's sick mockery of the life and career of Justice Thurgood Marshall.

It's PERFORMATIVE corruption. Corruption meant to piss off political opponents. Liberals believe in ethics and standards...Shithole Clarence knows this and flaunts his corruption joyfully.