Real estate mogul Harlan Crow has been in the national spotlight lately over his penchant for giving extravagant (undisclosed!) gifts to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas: private jet trips, megayacht excursions, and a $19,000 bible, to name just a few. He also spent $133,363 to buy several properties from Thomas—including the home the justice’s mother still lives in. Crow, and groups linked with him, often have cases before the court, and Thomas has ruled in their favor. As Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern wrote, this sure seems like a case of “classic quid pro quo (or perhaps quid pro Crow) corruption.”
Though most of us probably didn’t even know Crow existed until recently, the 73-year-old Texan has been pouring his wealth into influencing American politics since the 1990s. Transparency group OpenSecrets identified $14.7 million that Crow and his wife Kathy have contributed to state and federal candidates, committees, and parties over the past three decades.
In an interview with the Dallas Morning News, Crow said he considers himself a “center-right Republican” who believes in bipartisanship and a good debate—though Republicans have received the majority of his money. (On the other side of the aisle, he’s donated to conservative Democrats, like the group that ended up killing the Build Back Better Act).
The New Republic reported that, between 2019 and 2021, Crow donated over $130,000 to No Labels—a third-party group that claims to promote a more moderate alternative to the two major political parties, but who critics say basically just exists to get Donald Trump elected in 2024 by taking votes away from President Joe Biden.
Crow appears not to be especially keen on Donald Trump, though—he donated $100,000 to the Our Principles PAC back in 2016, a group created specifically to prevent Trump from being elected.
The National Republican Congressional Committee also reported receiving over $1.4 million from the Crows since 1990, and Crow donated another $500,000 to Liberty Central, a conservative activist group founded by Ginni Thomas—yes, we’re talking about Justice Thomas’ wife. He’s also given generously to Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans, including Sens. Chuck Grassley, John Cornyn, and Marsha Blackburn. (That’s the same committee that would be responsible for holding hearings about Thomas and Crow’s dealings).
Crow has also dabbled in local politics, particularly in the state of Utah. He has donated over $35,000 to both Republican and Democratic candidates and committees there since 1994. Almost half of Crow’s Utah-specific donations went to Republican Sen. Mike Lee, who got around $8,000 from Crow in his first reelection campaign in 2016 and another $8,700 in his 2022 race against Evan McMullin. Crow also gave Sen. Mitt Romney’s campaign a boost in 2012, when he donated $2.3 million to super PACs that supported the senator’s presidential bid.
But politics isn’t the only area Crow is interested in, as the billionaire appears to have an …eclectic mix of hobbies. He recently spent $25 million on a pet project in his hometown of Dallas—a 228-foot bell tower called Campanile. Crow considers it a gift to the city and hopes it will bring an Old World–style ambiance to Dallas. Alongside architecture, Crow also invests in artwork and even has two paintings by Adolf Hilter … along with a signed copy of Mein Kampf and Nazi medallions. (Crow defended his controversial collection in 2014, saying it was not a celebration of repressive regimes but an effort “to preserve that as a part of our history.”)
He also created a “garden of evil” in his backyard, complete with statues of fallen communist leaders including Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin, Fidel Castro, and Karl Marx.
Many of the GOP lawmakers that have benefited from Crow’s wealth have been quick to defend his, um, questionable taste. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, whose 2018 reelection campaign got $75,000 in outside political spending from Crow, claimed he simply hadn’t seen the billionaire’s Hitler paintings himself and therefore couldn’t confirm if they did in fact exist. “I have no idea,” Cruz told Insider. “His library is an extensive museum.”
