Which U.S. public officials have been reported to attend Bohemian Grove, and how have disclosure rules intersected with those visits?
Executive summary
Bohemian Grove is a private, all‑male retreat whose membership and guest lists have historically included U.S. presidents, senior officials and other public figures; names frequently reported include Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush (and a reported guest appearance by George W. Bush), Henry Kissinger and, in recent coverage, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas [1] [2] [3]. The Grove’s secrecy — strict gate rules about recording and an internal culture of non‑disclosure — collides with federal ethics and financial‑disclosure norms when public officials accept travel or hospitality there, a tension highlighted by reporting and ethics complaints around Justice Thomas’s visits [4] [5].
1. Who the reporting says has shown up at the Grove — a partial roll call
Journalistic and encyclopedic accounts list a long roster of past attendees and guests drawn from politics, business and the media: Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan are repeatedly named in historical reporting; Reagan was inducted into the Bohemian Club in the 1970s and Nixon is on record discussing the Grove in taped conversations [2] [6]. Reporting and club histories also point to appearances or invitations to figures such as Henry Kissinger and multiple Bush family connections — George H. W. Bush and an instance where his son George W. Bush was introduced lakeside as a future president — and longtime media and corporate figures have been noted among guests [3] [2] [7]. Contemporary investigative pieces identify Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as a long‑time attendee and, in some accounts, a member or recurring guest of specific club members [5] [2].
2. Clarence Thomas: the case that moved disclosure rules into public view
ProPublica’s reporting placed Justice Clarence Thomas at the center of the modern disclosure debate by documenting years of travel to private events — including the Bohemian Grove — paid for or hosted by wealthy patrons, and by concluding those trips were not reported on federal disclosure forms [5]. Ethics‑law experts quoted in that reporting argued Thomas’s travel did not fall clearly within the narrow carve‑out some defenders cited, and congressional inquiries followed ProPublica’s revelations, including a complaint to the Judicial Conference about nondisclosure [5]. ProPublica observed that Thomas has been a regular at the Grove for roughly 25 years and stayed at club lodges hosted by members, naming Harlan Crow as a host in coverage [5].
3. What the Grove’s secrecy looks like — and why it matters for disclosures
The Grove enforces strict privacy: no cameras, phones or recording devices past the gate, a culture of secrecy among attendees and formal prohibitions on reporting what happens inside, all documented in coverage and firsthand accounts [4] [7]. That closed environment compounds the challenge of tracing which public‑official activities constitute reportable gifts or travel under federal ethics rules, because independent public records of hospitality, flights and lodging are often sparse or unavailable absent self‑reporting by officials or investigative reporting [4] [5].
4. Competing narratives, exaggerations and evidentiary limits
Coverage of Bohemian Grove has long attracted conspiracy‑tinged claims and sensational reporting — from Alex Jones’s 2000 filming of a ritual to fringe claims about “satanic” rites — which mainstream outlets and fact‑checks have debunked or contextualized even as they acknowledge the club’s secretive rituals exist [2] [8]. Scholars and journalists also caution that membership and attendance lists are often overstated in popular accounts, and that evaluating the policy consequences of private conversations at the Grove is difficult because much of the record is private or anecdotal [9] [7]. Available reporting confirms certain high‑profile attendees but does not yield a definitive public roster of every public official who has ever attended [1] [2].
5. Bottom line: verified names, transparency gaps, and unresolved questions
Reporting reliably connects a number of prominent public officials to Bohemian Grove over decades — notably Nixon, Reagan, Bush family figures, Kissinger and, in detailed recent scrutiny, Justice Clarence Thomas — while also documenting the club’s deliberate opacity and the resulting friction with disclosure expectations for public servants [2] [3] [5] [4]. Whether specific visits violate disclosure laws often depends on the facts of who paid for travel or lodging and on narrow legal definitions; ProPublica and subsequent complaints argue that at least some recent Supreme Court trips merit formal review, but publicly available sources do not close every evidentiary gap about past hospitality or the precise applicability of carve‑outs [5]. The record shows clear public‑interest reasons for transparency when sitting officials accept privately funded hospitality, even as the Grove’s culture and rules have long shielded who attends and what transpires there [4] [5].