CLARENCE THOMAS BILLIONAIRE BENEFACTOR HARLAN CROW BOUGHT CITIZENSHIP IN ISLAND TAX HAVEN

[douglas9]

HARLAN CROW, the billionaire GOP donor who paid for luxury travel on his private jet and yacht for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, was a dual citizen of the U.S. and the island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis as recently as last year, according to recently unearthed documents.

In 2012, Crow and his family were granted passports for St. Kitts and Nevis, a tax haven known for impenetrable financial secrecy, through a cash-for-citizenship scheme. Documents provided to the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation by a whistleblower as part of its Passport Papers investigation and reviewed by the Project on Government Oversight, or POGO, and The Intercept suggest Crow and his brother Trammell S. Crow paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for the passports. Financial transparency experts say the island’s tax regime would make tracking Crow’s assets, including gifts to Supreme Court justices, extremely difficult.

The documents were leaked from Henley and Partners, a London-based firm known for assisting the ultra-wealthy in obtaining “golden passports,” which allow the holders to shield assets from their home country’s tax authorities. The firm advertises itself as “the global leader in residence and citizenship by investment” and has been shown to do business with controversial clients. An Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project investigation using the leaked documents reported that the firm was working with a rogues’ gallery of accused financial criminals from around the world. An investigative journalism collaboration, also based on the leaked trove of Henley documents, reported that oligarchs, fugitives, and sanctioned businesspeople were among the clients seeking foreign passports. The passports, granted in 2012, would expire after 10 years unless renewed. It’s unclear if the Crow family renewed them last year.

https://theintercept.com/2023/04/25/clarence-thomas-harlan-crow-citizenship-st-kitts/

[moniss]

1. I've never been

in favor of dual citizenship for anybody. Too rife with corruption/criminality.

[Hope22]

2. Even in a situation where two parents are of different nationality? n/t

[moniss]

3. Yes I believe

you pick one country at a time. If someone wants to become a citizen of another country that's fine but then give up the old one and take the new one.

[LittleGirl]

13. Have you ever lived abroad?

Because you sound like you don't have the faintest clue what it's like to live in a country that you don't have citizenship to. Try having a relationship with someone from another country and you would certainly see how silly your judgment is on dual citizens.

This guy bought his citizenship to hide some billions from the tax authorities. That's tax fraud. That's illegal and hundreds of thousands of dollars to a billionaire is like 100 bucks to us. It's a nothing burger for a billionaire...for the privilege of hiding a cool billion dollars!

It had nothing to do with dual citizenship. This was a criminal operation.

[moniss]

30. Nonsense and

you do not know whether Crow committed tax fraud or did he game the legal system by constructing the matter in such a way as to comply with the laws of both countries. It doesn't stop him from being reprehensible for it but it doesn't automatically carry with it a legal finding of fraud. That is for investigators and courts to determine.

Who told you that you have to live in a particular country? You may want to and if you do you should obtain citizenship because that is now where you reside. People having vagabond citizenship because they want to have a personal relationship is silly, vain and selfish in the extreme. The idea that someone tries to float the ability to comply with all the requirements of citizenship of several countries all at the same time is nonsense. There are always going to be conflicts and the vagabond citizen can't split themselves into multiple little parts. There are things that are needs and things that are wants. A person doesn't need multi citizenship. They may want it for various reasons but the rest of the citizens of each country who don't play the "game" shouldn't be shouldering more of being a citizen than those who claim to be when it benefits them in a situation and switch when it doesn't.

As far as conducting your personal relationship with someone from another country I would simply say why should you make that personal desire something that becomes an issue for all the rest of the citizens of multiple countries to have to deal with and create special statutory constructs for you. Nobody is forcing you into the relationship. If you want to live there and date then meet the visa requirements or become a citizen and understand you are not two things at once. At the heart of it is the idea that there is a difference between being a visitor and a citizen. Those who want to make legal claim to the latter while behaving like the former and bounce back and forth between countries are simply doing so for personal convenience.

[AllaN01Bear]

21. i have friends who are dual.

[moniss]

28. I do also

and I've heard them talk about gaming one against the other while only paying taxes to one. I have yet for anybody to show me an actual need for society to allow it as opposed to it being to the sole benefit of the individual. For example nobody needs to own a house in more than one country and use their citizenship to stay there longer than a visa would allow. They may want to but they don't need to. The idea that we tolerate a system where people claim to be multiple different things all at the same time is a mad labyrinth of conflicting laws, treaties and benefits. For example if you have multiple citizenship in countries that have mandatory military service what do you do when a conflict involves more than one? If you choose just one how is that fair to the citizens of the other who were supposed to be able to depend upon your service as a legal requirement of citizenship? So then people say give up the citizenship if you can't comply. That is exactly what I'm talking about. People using citizenship for their personal benefit when it suits them and tossing it off when conflicts arise.

[Hope22]

24. You are asking children to pick a parent....

Tax fraud of a few is not a reason to deny the majority of the people the right to legal association with the country of a birth parent.

[moniss]

27. I'm not asking a child to pick anything

all I'm saying is that Mommy and Daddy need to pick one country for citizenship and go with it. If Mommy and Daddy aren't together and want to have different countries as their citizenship that's fine. Dual/multi citizenship gets abused for way more than a few billionaires dodging taxes. Furthermore what you label as fraud is not in a legal sense because they construct it in such a way as to comply with the legalities of their multi citizenship countries. Playing one off against the other because you derive some benefit from the legal/political system of one over the other etc. is something that people do and may be legal but is not some given basic right of humanity. It is a statutory construct and doesn't necessarily have to be allowed. The notion that a person is British when it suits them and then French when it doesn't and then Spanish if being French isn't to suit is absolutely bollocks and serves no purpose other than to game one against the other as it benefits most the supposed "citizen" who stretches the meaning of that word to absurdity.

[Hope22]

29. I didn't say child...I said children

Children can be any age. The term does not change.

[moniss]

31. It doesn't matter

singular or plural or age.

[moniss]

4. Don't be surprised

when they keep digging if they find that there were more "friends" that Crooked Clarence was snuggling up to.

[Captain Zero]

6. The Crowes are Oligarchs. Just like Russian Oligarchs.

It's unAmerican.
It's Elitism.
FDR used the term Economic Royalty.

Yet we are a country with no royalty.
So it's unAmerican.

[2naSalit]

5. The fact that he holds more than one...

Passport is not the issue, it's the reason they have others and what they "use" them for that is the issue.

I have several friends from other countries who hold more than one passport, none of them are money launderers, international miscreants or other undesirable types.

Sure, it's a lead to follow to see why he would need more than one passport but the fact that he has one is not the issue.

[70sEraVet]

15. Perhaps the issue is that it takes a whistleblower to reveal the dual citizenship?

Should folks that have dual citizenship be required to notify our government of that fact? Not only would the IRS be interested in that dual status, but i would think that the justice system would also need that information when determining the flight risk of a defendant. And the DOJ.

[2naSalit]

17. How do you know that those agencies...

Don't know about it? Just because someone claims they have a scoop doesn't mean that the info is not known in places we would not hear about.

I think it's a misdirected accusation. It's his business dealings rather than the fact that there is another passport.

[DFW]

7. I am very much in favor of allowing dual nationalty

It’s very easy to oppose it if you never have to confront the issue personally.

My wife is German and our daughters were born in Germany. Still, since I am American, we wanted to make sure they were not denied the chance to live and work in either place. After they were born, I went to the American Embassy in Germany and got them US nationality before they were four months old.

If you are only American, applying for residence and a work permit in the EU is extremely tedious, and by no means a sure thing. Same goes for EU citizens coming to the USA, even to study for an extended period of time. Our girls are fully bi-lingual and bi-cultural. One now lives and works in the USA. The other is a top attorney for a NY law firm in Germany. She got her job because she can live and work in either place. Both of them went through the (now-)tedious process of getting the “other” citizenship for their children so they could enjoy the same advantage. Should there ever be a crisis of some sort, they are welcome in either place as citizens. They would fight anyone tooth and nail who would take that right away from them just because a hundred rich people abused the privilege. They didn’t buy their dual nationality, or even ask for it. They were born to it.

[LittleGirl]

14. Exactly. That's how it should work.

I know an American that had a child over here and has not registered the child because she doesn't want him to have US citizenship unless he wants it. His choice and he's still a minor but he, by-birth to an American, is entitled to be a citizen. She just wants the child to make the choice. He will have to go through the process himself and have his paperwork translated to English.

[2naSalit]

18. +1

[geardaddy]

22. +1

[Hope22]

26. Canada had a housekeeping issue a few years back

And offered those with a Canadian parent official citizenship, no matter the age. My friend, whose mother was Canadian had her children in the US. Her husband, an American, worked for the US government overseas and he did not want to have to deal with extra passports every time they crossed a border so the kids traveled with a U.S. passport and were officially only US citizens. Mom of course had her Canadian documents. She always wanted her kids to have Canadian citizenship. When Canada offered the opportunity to be recognized my friend took them up on it to honor his mother. He was long an adult and she had passed but it is something he did because he knew it was her wish.

[DFW]

32. I had no particular motive outside of wanting my children to have a maximum of options.

You can always renounce a citizenship if you don't want to be a citizen of that country any more. It's much more complicated to acquire citizenship of a country where you don't have any family claim, and can't produce a job offer that can convince an immigration officer that you can fulfill a job requirement that no one already living there can.

If you can prove that there is a job opening in a country you want to move to, and it requires someone who can speak Mandarin, Hungarian and Navajo and can tune a harpsichord, well IF you can speak Mandarin, Hungarian and Navajo AND can tune a harpsichord, AND the job has been open for six months, you have a chance at getting a visa. If the job opening is for a coffee mixer at Starbucks, chances are that you will not be considered by that country's immigration service for a work permit, no matter HOW well you can mix a latte.

My EU based daughter got her first job in Germany during the Cheney-Bush recession. Just out of Law School, finding no jobs at all in the USA, she went to a legal job fair in Germany, already armed with German citizenship, and therefore a work permit. She was interviewed by the German arm of a British law firm, whose head office in London said they were really only looking for someone who was bi-lingual in English and German, had an EU work permit and an American bar exam. My daughter said, "That's me. Here I am." Both she and the British law firm jumped at the chance, and they offered her an €85,000 a year starting salary. Since the alternative was waiting on tables in New York, where she had gone to law school (and wanted to stay on), it didn't take her long to say yes. Bye bye New York, hello Frankfurt. She was soon head-hunted by the Frankfurt arm of a New York law firm, and both she and her partner are under consideration for transfer to the head office in New York. Her man would need to go through the whole bureaucratic wars of getting a residence visa and a work permit. She and her girls will only need to flash their US passports and waltz right in.

[Hope22]

33. Options are wonderful.

I love this example and am so happy for your daughter. It makes me smile and I needed that! Thank you. My friend that got dual citizenship with Canada could actually leave this madness today. I tell him he should go but he will not leave his friends behind. If push comes to shove he will go and live to tell the story. Thanks again. : )

[James48]

8. Interesting.

You know who else had property in st Kitts/Nevis??

Justice Stephen Breyer. Breyer was attacked in Nevis in 2012. Remember?

https://www.washingtonian.com/2012/02/14/justice-stephen-breyer-owns-lots-of-land/

[2naSalit]

19. +1

[Dios Mio]

9. Repercussions?

Hold your breath.

[LiberalFighter]

10. Does Thomas have dual citizenship too?

[erronis]

11. George Santos has passports from 23 countries and heads up the United Nations. (nt)

[2naSalit]

20. +1

[Meadowoak]

12. I wonder if the orange turd had dual citizenship and accounts in St. Kitts?

[Botany]

16. I wonder how much money Harlan Crow gave to support the J-6th attempted coup?

n/t

[Chainfire]

23. It sounds like a case of buying a "get out of jail free" card.

It's good to be da king...

[NullTuples]

25. Perhaps there would be laws against such a thing if politicians were not on average so wealthy...

...or if their personal wealth was by law not allowed to interact at all with their lawmaking.

Alas...

[pfitz59]

34. Here's the skinny

"Economic citizenship by investment
See also: Saint Kitts and Nevis passport
St Kitts allows foreigners to obtain the status of St Kitts citizen by means of a government sponsored investment programme called Citizenship-by-Investment.[62][1] Established in 1984, St Kitts's citizenship programme is the oldest prevailing economic citizenship programme of this kind in the world. However, while the programme is the oldest in the world, it only catapulted in 2006 when Henley & Partners, a global citizenship advisory firm, became involved in the restructuring of the programme to incorporate donations to the country's sugar industry.[63]

Citizenship-by-Investment Programmes have been criticised by some researchers due to the risks of corruption, money laundering and tax evasion.[64] According to the official website of St Kitts's Citizenship-by-Investment Programme they offer multiple benefits: "When you acquire citizenship under the St Kitts & Nevis citizenship programme, you and your family enjoy full citizenship for life, which can be passed on to future generations by descent. As citizens of St Kitts & Nevis, you and your family are issued with passports which allow visa-free travel to more than 140 countries and territories worldwide, including all of the EU. Of course you have the right to take up residence in St Kitts & Nevis as well as in most of the CARICOM member countries at any time and for any length of time".[65]

Each candidate must go through several legal steps and make a qualifying investment into the country[65] and should complete certain legal requirements to qualify for citizenship under the investment programme. The applicant must make at least a minimum investment in either approved real estate, the Sugar Industry Diversification Foundation (SDIF), or the Sustainable Growth Fund (SGF) to qualify for the economic citizenship of St Kitts and Nevis.[66][67]

According to Henley & Partners, the requirements are as follows:[68][69]

An investment in designated real estate with a minimum value of US$400,000, plus the payment of government fees and other fees and taxes.
A contribution to the Sugar Industry Diversification Fund of at least US$250,000, inclusive of all government fees but exclusive of due diligence fees which are the same for the real estate option.
According to Imperial & Legal, from 1 April 2018 St Kitts and Nevis government implemented a new investment option – Contribution to Sustainable Growth Fund (SGF). To qualify for citizenship of St Kitts & Nevis, applicants who choose to invest in SGF will need to make a once-off non-refundable contribution of $150,000 plus due diligence fees" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Kitts_and_Nevis