Clarence Thomas, Taylor Swift and that gift your client was nice enough to send
How much does the hullabaloo over billionaire Harlan Crow’s lavish gifts to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas mean for financial advisors?
The bidding starts at $100.
Since ProPublica broke the story in early April, Harlan Crow and members of Congress have been battling over whether the real estate magnate needs to divulge details of his gifts to Thomas, including stays at luxury resorts, private jet flights and trips aboard his 162-foot yacht, the Michaela Rose. Crow and his lawyers contend he followed all the pertinent rules.
Thomas, meanwhile, said in a statement that he asked around when he first joined the court and was told that “personal hospitality from close personal friends” was totally permissible and that he need not report it. Still, the Supreme Court Justice claimed it is his “intent” to follow updated gift guidelines in the future so as to avoid any similar compliance kerfuffles.
Politics far, far aside, the whole affair seems awfully unseemly. And even if all the parties involved are telling the truth (let alone the whole truth and nothing but the truth), Crow’s presents to Thomas still created an air of suspicion that led directly down a path of ill will.
Nobody needs that aggravation or such distractions, not at the Supreme Court and not in the wealth management industry.
“The rules are there so there is a line in the sand of what is right and wrong, but the majority of us should have a sense for what is appropriate,” said Debra Brennan Tagg, president of BFS Advisory Group.
That said, Tagg points out that Finra’s guidelines are a little archaic.
“The $100 gift limit has been in place for my whole career and has never adjusted for inflation as far as I know,” she said. “You can hardly buy a client
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