Attorney General Merrick Garland tried to dodge questions about judicial ethics, specifically complaints against Justice Clarence Thomas for accepting luxury travel gifts from a GOP megadonor.

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA), who on Tuesday reintroduced legislation for Supreme Court term limits that could send Thomas into senior status, repeatedly asked Garland whether he had accepted similar types of gifts and travel offers when he was a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

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“Did you take any vacations at exclusive resorts paid for by a billionaire?” Johnson asked, tacitly referencing the longest-serving justice. Again referring to Thomas and his billionaire friend, Harlan Crow, Johnson asked, “You would never have had somebody to pay for your godson's tuition to private school, would you?”

Garland wouldn't address the questions about Thomas directly but said as a judge "held myself to the highest standards," noting that federal judges in lower courts are bound by the Code of Conduct for United States Judges.

"I’ve said this before and quite publicly and long ago — I always held myself to the highest standards of ethical responsibility imposed by the code and that's really all I can answer here,” Garland said.

The Supreme Court has said justices also consult that same code, though it lacks any enforcement mechanism, given that justices make decisions on whether to recuse themselves independently without pressure from their colleagues or outside parties.

Johnson and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) requested in April the Judicial Conference, the policymaking body of federal courts, to investigate Thomas's failure to disclose travel and real estate deals with Crow. Thomas has since released his annual disclosure report for 2022, and a portion of that form added information that he and his wife, Ginni Thomas, said was “inadvertently omitted” from prior reports — including Crow’s 2014 purchase of three houses in which the justice held an interest.

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Garland did say he would "speak to the Office of Legislative Affairs" about the referral request to the attorney general made by Johnson and Whitehouse.

The attorney general was once a nominee for the high court by former President Barack Obama, but was stymied in 2016 after the Republican majority on the Senate Judiciary Committee refused to conduct hearings to advance his nomination to a full vote.