By 2003, Thomas’s wife, Ginni, had begun working at the Heritage Foundation and was making a salary in the low six figures. The Heritage Foundation is part of the Koch brothers’ network. By at least 2010, Clarence Thomas began secretly participating in Koch donor network events, which put him in touch with wealthy and influential conservatives.
Looking at Thomas’s finances, though, it would seem that keeping pace with inflation wasn’t the main issue. When he was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1991, he still had student loans from law school. But during the early 1990s, he made at least two big purchases: a Corvette and a house in Virginia with five acres of land. Thomas and his wife bought the house for $522,000 in 1992. They were able to pay $8,000 out of pocket and had to borrow the rest, according to property records.
The couple borrowed huge sums of money throughout the next decade, including a consumer loan of $50,000 and a $100,000 line of credit on their house. In 1998, Thomas became his grandnephew’s legal guardian and began sending him to pricey private schools.