Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas pressed on questions over friend's $267,000 RV loan

• Two leading Democratic senators are pressing Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to say if he repaid a wealthy friend any of the principal for a $267,230 loan he used to buy a luxury motorhome.
• Senators Ron Wyden and Sheldon Whitehouse raised concerns about potential tax laws Thomas may have violated if the loan was forgiven but not reported on the justice's tax returns.
• The inquiry into the RV loan is only one part of a larger ethics controversy surrounding Thomas.

Two leading Democratic senators are pressing Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to say whether he repaid a wealthy friend any of the principal for a $267,230 loan he used to buy a luxury motorhome.

The letter to Thomas's lawyer, dated Tuesday, raises questions about potential tax violations by the conservative justice, who is the longest-serving member of the Supreme Court.

Senators Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., in their letter, assert that Thomas never repaid a significant portion of the principal loaned to him by Anthony Welters, nor has Thomas said whether the loan was forgiven.

"That such income from the forgiven debt was not reported on any of Justice Thomas's financial disclosure reports raises the possibility that Justice Thomas also did not report such forgiveness as income for tax purposes, as federal law requires," the senators wrote in the letter.

The New York Times first reported in August that Thomas in 1999 paid for his Prevost Le Mirage XL Marathon — a luxury RV — with a loan from Welters, a close friend of his.

The Senate Finance Committee, which Wyden chairs, in October found that Welters "ceased collecting principal or interest on" the loan in late 2008, the new letter noted.

"It appears that no principal was ever