None of it was on the justice’s annual financial disclosure form. Neither was a payment of $133,363 that Mr. Crow made to Mr. Thomas and his family in 2014 in exchange for three properties in Savannah, Ga., including the house where the justice’s mother has lived, ProPublica reported on Thursday. Mr. Crow said he bought the real estate in order to create a Clarence Thomas museum one day. Experts said the failure to disclose the sale or the free trips was a clear violation of the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, which was intended to apply to all government employees and requires disclosure of real estate transactions and most gifts. Each branch of government was given considerable leeway in determining how it would comply with the law, and court critics have long said that the Supreme Court’s compliance was the weakest of any federal government body.

Failing to disclose gifts and transactions is only one part of the problem, though. The gifts that many justices have disclosed in full or in part over the years are often just as damaging to the court’s reputation as the ones they did not fully disclose. Justice Antonin Scalia took at least 258 subsidized trips while on the court, often to distant destinations, all paid for by private donors, some of which were at least partially disclosed. (He often tacked hunting trips onto trips to give speeches, but only disclosed the speeches.) He died in 2016 while staying in a luxurious Texas hunting lodge owned by John Poindexter, a wealthy businessman whose company had legal matters before the court; that trip was never officially disclosed. Justice Stephen Breyer took at least 225 subsidized trips from 2004 to 2018, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, including trips to Europe, Japan, India and Hawaii. One was a trip to Nantucket paid for by David Rubenstein, a private equity mogul.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg got a private tour of Israel in 2018 that was paid for by an Israeli billionaire, Morris Kahn, who has had business before the court. Many other justices have taken questionable trips over the years, including weeklong trips paid for by big universities and law schools, some of which were not fully disclosed on their annual reports.

The problem with these kinds of favors and gifts — regardless of whether they are disclosed — is that they badly damage the court’s reputation as the ultimate fair arbiter of the law. The court has already sunk in public esteem because of partisanship, particularly as justices nominated by Republicans have set aside precedents, public sentiment and impartiality to advance identifiably right-wing agendas. But when the court’s members accept benefits from the nation’s moneyed elite, no matter their politics, it sends a signal that ordinary Americans without those resources are at a disadvantage.

In some cases, it is not merely a signal. A ticket to the annual black-tie dinner held by the Supreme Court Historical Society costs at least $5,000 and includes the chance to mingle with the justices. The Times reported last year that at least $6.4 million of the money raised by the society came from corporations, special interest groups or lawyers with business before the court.