• A New York Times report detailed the close relationship Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas maintains with former clerks.
  • These relationships have sometimes led to some gifts from former clerks.
  • The gifts have included, according to the Times, batteries for the justice's RV.

A New York Times report detailed the close relationship Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas maintains with his former clerks — and he's even gotten some gifts out of it.

On Sunday, the Times reported that Thomas has built a tight-knit network of his former clerks, and his continued relationships with them have kept them loyal, defending him as he has come under fire over the past year over his ties to billionaires and gifts he's failed to disclose.

According to the report, Thomas has stayed in touch with his clerks over the years by arranging monthly lunches at Morton's The Steakhouse or another restaurant, along with trips to Gettysburg's Civil War battlefield.

And those favors have not gone unreturned. For example, one of Thomas' former clerks purchased a taxidermy lobster in 1998 from a Virginia man whose summer home had been previously been robbed — and the lobster in question was stolen.

Thomas had rejected the appeal of the man who robbed the home.

The Times reported that the former clerk procured and gifted Thomas the stuffed lobster.

The report said that other clerks have also presented Thomas with gifts over the years as tokens of loyalty, like batteries for the justice's RV.

Thomas was "quite extraordinary in terms of keeping in touch with his clerks, helping clerks and having everyone be in touch with each other," Stephen McAllister, a former clerk, told the Times.

And those relationships have persisted even amid ProPublica's reporting that Thomas has gone on lavish vacations with billionaires and accepted gifts that he failed to disclose, which have invited concerns over the lack of a clear ethics code at the nation's highest court.

For example, a ProPublica report in August found that the justice had received gifts from billionaires that included at least 38 vacations, 26 private jet flights, and private stays at luxury resorts, some of which he failed to disclose.

Those gifts have led a group of Democratic lawmakers to scrutinize whether Thomas' undisclosed gifts were "in defiance of his duty under federal law." Still, Thomas has yet to admit any wrongdoing, and as the Times reported, his network continues to stand by his side.

After the August ProPublica report was released, over 100 of his former clerks signed an open letter defending him, writing that "we all saw with our own eyes the same thing: His integrity is unimpeachable."

"We are proud to have been his clerks and to remain his friends," they wrote, "and we unequivocally reject attacks on his integrity, his character, or his ethics."