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Giving and forgiving a $200k loan, buying his mom's house (while still allowing her to live there free for over a decade), and paying for his kid's private schooling while you have cases in front of a justice has the appearance of impropriety.

My corpo policy doesn't even allow me to accept $20 of gifts from friends or acquaintances if there is also a sniff of business relationship there as well. The goings on between the Justice and his friend sure don't smell right, to me.

The pertinent questions are, what are norms for this kind of thing in the rest of the federal court system, and is Thomas’ behavior in the same universe as those?

The answers are “you turn down gifts of far, far less, from much less-risky associates” and “not in the same multiverse, even”.

Thomas joined the court in 1991, so I'm not sure that the 1996 friendship date helps him much.