Republican hits Clarence Thomas with. lawsuit over his taxes

Republican John Anthony Castro is filing a lawsuit against Clarence Thomas, accusing the U.S. Supreme Court associate justice of failing to file his income taxes, Newsweek has learned.

Castro, a long-shot Republican presidential candidate and tax attorney who filed a flurry of lawsuits seeking to remove former President Donald Trump from the GOP primary ballot, told Newsweek that he is filing suit against Thomas in a Virginia court under the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act (VFATA). Although he mailed the complaint to the court on Friday, he expects it to take two business days for the court to process and file the case.

The complaint, which was shared with Newsweek, alleges that in violation of VFATA, "Clarence Thomas knowingly presented or caused to be presented a false and fraudulent claim (i.e., his 2005 Virginia State Income Tax Return) to the Virginia Department of Taxation on or about April 15, 2016, that failed to report income from discharge of indebtedness."

Thomas has faced immense scrutiny and calls for his resignation after it was reported that he failed to disclose several transactions, including a $267,230 loan that he received from wealthy friend Anthony Welters. Last year, an investigation from the Senate Finance Committee revealed that Thomas never repaid a "substantial portion" of that loan, raising concerns about whether the justice properly reported it in his tax filings.