RON WYDEN, OREGON, CHAIRMAN
DEBBIE STABENOW, MICHIGAN
MARIA CANTWELL, WASHINGTON
ROBERT MENENDEZ, NEW JERSEY
THOMAS R. CARPER, DELAWARE
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, MARYLAND
SHERROD BROWN, OHIO
MICHAEL F. BENNET, COLORADO
ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., PENNSYLVANIA
MARK R. WARNER, VIRGINIA
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, RHODE ISLAND
MAGGIE HASSAN, NEW HAMPSHIRE
CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, NEVADA
ELIZABETH WARREN, MASSACHUSETTS
MIKE CRAPO, IDAHO
CHUCK GRASSLEY, IOWA
JOHN CORNYN, TEXAS
JOHN THUNE, SOUTH DAKOTA
TIM SCOTT, SOUTH CAROLINA
BILL CASSIDY, LOUISIANA
JAMES LANKFORD, OKLAHOMA
STEVE DAINES, MONTANA
TODD YOUNG, INDIANA
JOHN BARRASSO, WYOMING
RON JOHNSON, WISCONSIN
THOM TILLIS, NORTH CAROLINA
MARSHA BLACKBURN, TENNESSEE
United States Senate
COMMITTEE ON FINANCE
WASHINGTON, DC 20510-6200
JOSHUA SHEINKMAN, STAFF DIRECTOR
GREGG RICHARD, REPUBLICAN STAFF DIRECTOR
August 5, 2024
Michael D. Bopp
Spouse
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
1050 Connecticut Road, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20036-5306
Pricey Mr. Bopp,
Thanks on your February twenty ninth letter to the behalf of your consumer, Harlan Crow, replying to
requests for info matching to the Senate Committee on Finance’s (“The Committee”) investigation
into the tax remedy of the significance of Mr. Crow’s superyacht and personal plane. Sadly, your
evasive reaction has handiest heightened my issues that Mr. Crow and his friends had been considering a
scheme to steer clear of paying taxes by way of claiming industry deductions on private advance. Specifically, your
reaction didn’t cope with the easy query of whether or not Mr. Crow claimed any tax deductions on
bills matching to yacht and personal plane significance by way of Perfect Courtroom Justice Clarence Thomas that you just
have mentioned had been for “personal hospitality”.
I’m deeply involved that Mr. Crow will have been ablution a society respectable with extravagant
presents, upcoming writing off the ones presents to decrease his tax invoice. This worry is handiest heightened by way of the Committee’s
contemporary discovery of supplementary secret global advance on Mr. Crow’s non-public jet by way of Justice
Thomas. As I imagine legislative answers to curb probably abusive deductions, I’m providing you one
ultimate alternative to deal with the tax remedy of yacht and jet journeys involving Justice Thomas. I’m additionally
providing you the prospect to confirm that the preserving corporate on your consumer’s yacht, Rochelle
Constitution, used to be surely occupied in for benefit yacht chartering actions and now not simply an entity impaired to
scribble off the price of the Crow public’s sumptuous way of life.
I.
Refusal to elucidate the tax remedy of yacht and personal jet journeys lavished on a society
respectable within the context of “personal hospitality”
As you might be conscious, your prior responses to the Committee situation that every one journeys Justice Thomas took
at the Michaela Rose and personal jets owned or chartered by way of Mr. Crow had been within the context of “private
hospitality”. Non-public journeys don’t provide as a industry function, which is needed beneath tax regulations to allow
prices related to the journeys to be tax deductible. On a number of events, I’ve requested immediately what number of
instances Justice Thomas traveled boarded the Michaela Rose and personal jets paid for by way of Mr. Crow, and
whether or not Mr. Crow deducted the prices of those explicit journeys on tax filings. Those must now not be tricky
questions to reply to. The likelihood that Mr. Crow will have lavished undercover presents on a sitting Perfect
