Republican John Anthony Castro is filing a lawsuit against Clarence Thomas, accusing the U.S. Supreme Court associate justice of failing to file his income taxes, Newsweek has learned.
Castro, a long-shot Republican presidential candidate and who describes himself as a tax attorney who filed a flurry of lawsuits seeking to remove former President Donald Trump from the GOP primary ballot, told Newsweek that he is filing suit against Thomas in a Virginia court under the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act (VFATA). Although he mailed the complaint to the court on Friday, he expects it to take two business days for the court to process and file the case.
The complaint, which was shared with Newsweek, alleges that in violation of VFATA, "Clarence Thomas knowingly presented or caused to be presented a false and fraudulent claim (i.e., his 2005 Virginia State Income Tax Return) to the Virginia Department of Taxation on or about April 15, 2016, that failed to report income from discharge of indebtedness."
Notably, the act states that a civil action cannot be brought "more than six years after the date on which the violation is committed." It goes on to say that civil action can also be brought no more than three years after new facts come to light, however "no more than ten years after the date on which the violation is committed."
Thomas has faced immense scrutiny and calls for his resignation after it was reported that he failed to disclose several transactions, including a $267,230 loan that he received from wealthy friend Anthony Welters. Last year, an investigation from the Senate Finance Committee revealed that Thomas never repaid a "substantial portion" of that loan, raising concerns about whether the justice properly reported it in his tax filings.
Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas speaks at the Heritage Foundation on October 21, 2021, in Washington, D.C. Thomas is being sued by Republican John Anthony Castro for allegedly submitting false or fraudulent tax filings. Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas speaks at the Heritage Foundation on October 21, 2021, in Washington, D.C. Thomas is being sued by Republican John Anthony Castro for allegedly submitting false or fraudulent tax filings. Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Castro said that once the report was released, he began looking into federal and state tax laws.
"Under Section 108 of the Internal Revenue Code, he would have had a legal obligation to report [the loan] as taxable income and the tax alone would have been, probably $40,000 or $50,000. That's a third of his annual salary," Castro said on Friday. "And that's when I was like, 'There's no way he reported that because that'd be financially disastrous for him.'"
Castro is suing Thomas under VFATA, which allows private citizens anywhere in the country to bring a claim against a Virginia resident for making a knowingly false or fraudulent claim to the commonwealth for money or property, essentially empowering regular Americans to take on the role of a de factor agent of the Virginia attorney general.
"It basically allows you to bring a tax enforcement action against a taxpayer," Castro said of the law.
Castro said he had planned to file the suit last year but claims that Trump coordinated with the Internal Revenue Service in retaliation against his activities "undermining the political objectives of the Trump Administration."
"Right when I'm going to level these accusations against Clarence Thomas for filing false and fraudulent returns, what happens to me? I get accused of false and fraudulent returns," Castro said.
"They intentionally devised this plan of, 'Let's accuse him of what he's about to accuse Clarence Thomas of, it's going to completely discredit him. And if he brings this claim, nobody's going to believe him," he continued. "But, of course, I still want to go forward with it."
Asked about whether he thinks his lawsuits against Thomas and Trump will fuel speculations about whether or not he was a conservative, Castro insisted he was still a Republican.
"I'm a very, very stubbornly principled person and if I feel that somebody broke the law, I'm going to hold them accountable," he said. "Just like Trump for January 6 and Clarence Thomas for this sham loan."
Update 2/3/2024 at 11:02 a.m. ET: The article was updated to clarify information about how Castro describes himself and to add information about the statute of limitation for the VFATA.