Author

Justin Elliott
Justin Elliott has been a reporter with ProPublica since 2012, where he covers business and politics. In recent years, he was on the team of reporters documenting how the rich avoid taxes for “The Secret IRS Files” series. He co-wrote the story revealing tech mogul Peter Thiel’s multibillion-dollar Roth IRA. Previously, his work on TurboTax-maker Intuit’s misleading marketing tactics led to a settlement that delivered $141 million back to consumers. He has produced stories for outlets including The New York Times and NPR, and his work has spurred congressional investigations and changes to federal legislation. He has won numerous awards, including a Gerald Loeb Award for business journalism, the Selden Ring Award, an Investigative Reporters and Editors award for a series on the American Red Cross and, with the “Trump, Inc.” podcast team, a duPont-Columbia Award. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Brown University in history and classics. He can be reached on Signal and WhatsApp at 774-826-6240.
Clarence Thomas secretly participated in Koch Network donor events
By: Joshua Kaplan, Alex Mierjeski and Justin Elliott - September 22, 2023
This story was produced and originally published by ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ decadeslong friendship with real estate tycoon Harlan Crow and Samuel Alito’s luxury travel with billionaire Paul Singer have raised questions about influence and ethics at the nation’s highest court. On Jan. 25, 2018, dozens of private […]
Thomas acknowledges undisclosed real estate deal with Harlan Crow and private jet flights
By: Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski - September 8, 2023
This story was originally published by ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ decades-long friendship with real estate tycoon Harlan Crow and Samuel Alito’s luxury travel with billionaire Paul Singer have raised questions about influence and ethics at the nation’s highest court. Thomas for the first time acknowledged that he should have […]
Alito took luxury fishing trip with GOP billionaire who later had cases before the Supreme Court
By: Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan and Alex Mierjeski - July 2, 2023
This story was originally written and reported by ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. In early July 2008, Samuel Alito stood on a riverbank in a remote corner of Alaska. The Supreme Court justice was on vacation at a luxury fishing lodge that charged more than $1,000 a day, and after catching a king […]
Clarence Thomas had a child in private school. Harlan Crow paid the tuition.
By: Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski - May 4, 2023
This story was originally produced by ProPublica, and the original article can be found here. In 2008, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas decided to send his teenage grandnephew to Hidden Lake Academy, a private boarding school in the foothills of northern Georgia. The boy, Mark Martin, was far from home. For the previous decade, he […]
Billionaire Harlan Crow bought property from Clarence Thomas. The justice didn’t disclose it
By: Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski - April 13, 2023
This story was originally published by ProPublica. In 2014, one of Texas billionaire Harlan Crow’s companies purchased a string of properties on a quiet residential street in Savannah, Georgia. It wasn’t a marquee acquisition for the real estate magnate, just an old single-story home and two vacant lots down the road. What made it noteworthy […]
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas travels with billionaire on undisclosed luxury trips
By: Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski - April 6, 2023
This story was originally published by ProPublica. In late June 2019, right after the U.S. Supreme Court released its final opinion of the term, Justice Clarence Thomas boarded a large private jet headed to Indonesia. He and his wife were going on vacation: nine days of island-hopping in a volcanic archipelago on a superyacht staffed […]