DALLAS — Harlan Crow, the Dallas real estate magnate whose friendship with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has drawn national attention, doesn’t believe they’ve done anything wrong.
In the first sit-down interview since the revelation, the 73-year-old told The Dallas Morning News that he thought the coverage over the last several weeks, sparked out of an investigation by nonprofit news organization ProPublica, was a “political hit job.”
Here are key takeaways from The News’ interview.
Is Crow a Republican megadonor, as he’s been described?
While Crow does not see himself as a Republican megadonor, he has a long history of being financially involved in conservative efforts.
“I don’t know what megadonor means,” he said. “I have been a donor to moderate Republican individuals running for office, as well as groups that are involved in that kind of world to support more moderate Republican stuff.”
But he’s put continued money behind candidates and groups considered outside the scope of moderate conservativism.
In Austin, Crow has bet heavily on Gov. Greg Abbott — $216,800 in all, starting with $20,000 in late 2001 when, as a former justice on the Texas Supreme Court, Abbott was running for attorney general.
Crow is also a co-founder of Club for Growth, an influential anti-tax group whose beneficiaries include Sen. Ted Cruz. He’s given unknown sums of “dark money” that isn’t subject to disclosure.
The more notably down-the-middle candidates he’s backed include a $25,000 donation to Rep. Tony Gonzales of San Antonio, the most moderate Texas Republican in Congress. He’s one of 14 of 25 Texas Republicans in the House who count Crow as a donor.
Crow has also given $20,000 to Rep. Henry Cuellar of Laredo throughout the last three years. Cuellar is among the most conservative Democrats in Congress, a high-ranking member of the Appropriations Committee and the only Texas Democrat in Congress on Crow’s donation list.
In the last three decades, Crow and his wife have publicly contributed $14.7 million to federal and state candidates and campaign committees. Of that, at least $13 million went to Republicans.
Crow sees the amount he’s provided to Republicans over the years as a fair amount, but too small to be considered a megadonor. He estimated in an exclusive interview with The News, that he’s given away somewhere “in the low number of millions in the past five years” to political candidates.
Since January 2018, Crow donated more than $5.6 million, according to Federal Election Commission filings. He contributed $2.5 million from 2016 to 2017.
The real estate figure’s largest political donations of 2022 went toward conservative causes. Crow donated $200,000 to the Senate Leadership Fund, a Super PAC aimed at building a Republican Senate majority and $175,000 to the Republican Party of Texas.
He contributed $150,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund, a Super PAC working to elect Republicans to the House. He also shelled out $75,000 to Take Back the House 2022, a fundraising committee spearheaded by then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to regain Republican leadership.
Crow also is a top funder of the conservative PAC, Coalition For Texas, according to TransparencyUSA, a state campaign finance database.
In the last two years, Crow donated to a slew of state Republican candidates and groups. The list includes former Republican member of the Texas Supreme Court Eva Guzman and the Associated Republicans of Texas Campaign Fund.
Is he 'pro-choice'?
While Republican political candidates commonly oppose the right to an abortion, Crow described himself as “pro-choice.”
His friend Thomas is not. Thomas voted with the Supreme Court majority in overturning Roe v. Wade, erasing constitutional protection for abortion rights in place for nearly a half-century. He also called on the court to consider other major cases, including Obergefell v. Hodges (same-sex marriage) and Griswold v. Connecticut (the right to contraception).
Crow said he never tried to sway Thomas to his position on the highly-polarizing social issue.
“Do you think I would try to influence him about my point of view on that matter? No, of course not. That’s insane,” he said. “We have different points of view on that and probably other issues.”
Is media coverage politically motivated?
Crow criticized ProPublica’s investigation into the justice’s relationship with him. He told The News that he believes the news coverage is “factually incorrect and being written with a strong political agenda.”
“I have to set the record straight,” he said.
He said he thinks the media, especially ProPublica, the nonprofit news organization that first published the piece on Crow and Thomas, had “an agenda to destabilize the (Supreme Court).”
He claimed ProPublica was funded by leftists. The organization’s editor in chief, Stephen Engleberg, said the nonpartisan news site is funded by more than 36,000 donors.
“As investigative journalists, our job is to unearth the facts,” Engleberg said. “If Harlan Crow disputes the accuracy of our reporting involving Justice Clarence Thomas, we invite him to provide us with the details so we can correct any inaccuracies.”
He also reserved some of this criticism for The News.
“I have always felt that The Dallas Morning News was better than that. And I believe they’ve been a part of it this week,” he said. “That makes me sad.”
Does he sympathize with Nazis?
Crow is known for his vast collection of historical artifacts, which present the good and the bad, to coincide with reality, he said. His collection includes a signed copy of "Mein Kampf," a 1925 autobiographical manifesto by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler.
He told The News that his mother was on a ship sunk by Germans during World War II.
“If you try to kill my mom, I don’t like you. I mean, that’s reasonably obvious. And so the idea that I could have sympathy for Nazism is insane,” he said.
His mother, Margaret Crow, was considered a “Dallas society girl,” a group of wealthy young Texas women who survived the sinking of the Athenia, the first U-boat attack of World War II.
After her parents had passed tragically in a car crash near Waxahachie, she joined a female travel party to Europe.
The morning of Sept. 3, 1939, she learned Britain and France had declared war on Germany. That evening, a German submarine, U-30, mistook the Athenia for an armored cruiser and fired torpedoes, hitting the port side.
She died in 2014 at 94 of natural causes.
Did he inherit his wealth from his father, Trammell Crow?
Crow doesn’t agree with some media reports indicating he inherited his wealth from his father, the legendary late Dallas real estate developer Trammell Crow, who is credited with the creation of major projects such as the Dallas Market Center, Peachtree Center in Atlanta and the Embarcadero Center in San Francisco.
Harlan took over Crow Holdings in 1990 when the real estate industry and banking system were in crisis.
“Our company was also in distress,” he recalled. “Our economic value had deteriorated. It’s hard to know if it was zero, but it was low. I spent about five years doing workouts. We negotiated with a large number of financial institutions over a long period of time doing all this and we tried to do it as honorably as we could. And I believe we did it very honorably after it was all over.”
He emerged from that “distress” with a profitable business. Today, Crow Holdings has about $30 billion in assets under management.
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