Harlan Crow on collision course with Senate over Clarence Thomas gifts

Finance committee focusing on tax treatment of billionaire mega-donor's gifts to supreme court justice

The rightwing billionaire real estate developer Harlan Crow is facing a possible showdown with Senate investigators looking into the financial arrangement behind lavish vacations, private flights and other perks that were given to the conservative supreme court justice Clarence Thomas but never publicly disclosed.

At the centre of the Senate investigation are questions about the tax treatment of the gifts - which could be worth millions of dollars - and what Crow's financial treatment of those expenses might reveal about the true nature of his relationship with Thomas.