‘Another Attempt to Manufacture a Scandal’: Friend of Clarence Thomas Hits Back at New Report Targeting the Justice

A friend of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is pushing back against a new report that claims a wealthy Republican donor paid for the private school tuition of the justice’s grandnephew.
During the presidency of Donald Trump, Mark Paoletta was general counsel to the Office of Management and Budget and before that, served as chief counsel to then-Vice President Mike Pence. He’s also a friend of Thomas and his wife, Ginni Thomas, whom he has represented as a lawyer.
Paoletta responded on May 4 to a ProPublica article published hours earlier that detailed how billionaire Harlan Crow’s company paid the private school tuition of Thomas’s grandnephew, Mark Martin, whom the justice took custody of when he was 6 years old and was raising like a son. The exact amount paid over four years at two schools was unclear but the article said it could be upwards of $150,000….