News

Aug 15, 2023

Who Paid for Clarence Thomas' Motor Home? Meet Anthony Welters

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has come under the spotlight for yet another purchase of a luxury item bought with the help of a wealthy friend—a huge, high-end recreational vehicle, or RV,

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has come under the spotlight for yet another purchase of a luxury item bought with the help of a wealthy friend—a huge, high-end recreational vehicle, or RV, worth over $267,000.

The luxury motor home was financed in part by Thomas' close friend Anthony Welters, as revealed by a recent New York Times investigation. The title-history records show the motor home—a used Prevost Le Mirage XL Marathon that the justice spotted in Phoenix, Arizona in 1999—cost a total of $267,230. Newsweek contacted the Supreme Court's press office for comment by email on Tuesday.

Thomas, born into poverty in Georgia, would have never gotten a loan to cover the cost of the motor home, experts told the newspaper—so Welters stepped in. "Here is what I can share," Welters told the New York Times in a written statement. "Twenty-five years ago, I loaned a friend money, as I have other friends and family. We've all been on one side or the other of that equation. He used it to buy a recreational vehicle, which is a passion of his."

Welters added that, some nine years later, on November 22, 2008, the loan was satisfied. He did not answer any further questions on the purchase of the motor home—including how much money he lent the justice, and how much was returned to him.

Thomas has recently come under scrutiny for accepting gifts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from another friend, Republican donor Harlan Crow. The revelation has sparked a debate over increasing ethics requirements for Supreme Court justices.

Thomas said in a statement: "Early in my tenure at the Court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable."

But who is Welters, Thomas' generous friend?

The pair have reportedly been friends for a long time, even before Thomas took on the role of justice in the Supreme Court in 1991. The two men met around 1980 when they were both congressional aides to Republican lawmakers. Welters worked with Senator Jacob K. Javits of New York, and Thomas with Senator John C. Danforth of Missouri.

In his autobiography, Thomas writes that, at the time, "it wasn't exactly fashionable to be a Black person working for a Republican, and it was comforting to meet others in the same boat."

Like Thomas, Welters was born and raised in poverty, in Harlem, but eventually climbed the political ladder. His real fortune, however, came when he left politics to found the AmeriChoice in 1989, a Medicaid service provider he later sold to UnitedHealth Group for $530 million in stock in 2002. Welters continued to lead the company until 2016 when he retired.

Welters is currently on the board of directors of The Carlyle Group and Loews Corporation, as well as the pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences. He owns 127,120 shares of UnitedHealth Group Inc (UNH) stock, estimated to be worth over $65 million.

The estimated net worth of Welters is at least $80 million dollars as of August 7, according to GuruFocus, a website that provides stock-market research.