Tag: Samuel Alito

Sen. Whitehouse’s Ethics Complaint Against Justice Alito

September 6, 2023 / CounterPoint

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) lodged an ethics complaint against Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and implored Chief Justice John Roberts to “adopt a uniform process to address this complaint and others that may arise against any justice in the future.”

The letter came precisely one month after a coalition of 10 Democratic senators, Whitehouse among them, wrote to Roberts with similar concerns about Alito and the high court’s ethics.

Whitehouse’s new complaint stemmed from an interview Alito gave to attorney David Rivkin and Wall Street Journal editor James Taranto for a July 28 opinion piece published in the conservative newspaper.

In addition to writing for The Wall Street Journal, Rivkin is a lawyer for Leonard Leo, the former Federalist Society chief whose links to conservative billionaires and justices like Thomas have made him a target of the Senate Finance Committee’s probe.

Whitehouse argued the timing of the piece was suspicious and suggested “coordination with Mr. Rivkin’s efforts to block our inquiry.”

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Sen. Whitehouse Calls For Ethics Probe Into Supreme Court Justice Alito

Friends of the Court

August 10, 2023 / CounterPoint

“We are in a society where everything is quid pro quo,” Thomas said

During his three decades on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas has enjoyed steady access to a lifestyle most Americans can only imagine. A cadre of industry titans and ultrawealthy executives have treated him to far-flung vacations aboard their yachts, ushered him into the premium suites at sporting events and sent their private jets to fetch him — including, on more than one occasion, an entire 737. It’s a stream of luxury that is both more extensive and from a wider circle than has been previously understood.

Like clockwork, Thomas’ leisure activities have been underwritten by benefactors who share the ideology that drives his jurisprudence. Their gifts include:

At least 38 destination vacations, including a previously unreported voyage on a yacht around the Bahamas; 26 private jet flights, plus an additional eight by helicopter; a dozen VIP passes to professional and college sporting events, typically perched in the skybox; two stays at luxury resorts in Florida and Jamaica; and one standing invitation to an uber-exclusive golf club overlooking the Atlantic coast.

Do you have any tips on the Supreme Court? Brett Murphy can be reached by email at brett.murphy@propublica.org and by Signal or WhatsApp at 508-523-5195. Justin Elliott can be reached by email at justin@propublica.org or by Signal or WhatsApp at 774-826-6240. Josh Kaplan can be reached by email at joshua.kaplan@propublica.org and by Signal or WhatsApp at 734-834-9383.

This accounting of Thomas’ travel, revealed for the first time here from an array of previously unavailable information, is the fullest to date of the generosity that has regularly afforded Thomas a lifestyle far beyond what his income could provide. And it is almost certainly an undercount.

Clarence Thomas’ 38 Vacations: The Other Billionaires Who Have Treated the Supreme Court Justice to Luxury Travel

Fix the Damn Court

August 7, 2023 / CounterPoint

To get confirmed, Alito pledged to follow an anti-corruption law that he later ignored — now he says Congress can’t regulate the Supreme Court.

As the Senate considers legislation requiring the Supreme Court to adopt a code of ethics, Justice Samuel Alito recently insisted that lawmakers do not have “the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period,” claiming that this is an issue he and his fellow justices “have all thought about.”

But when Alito and most of his colleagues were trying to secure their confirmations to the high court, they promised the Senate Judiciary Committee they would adhere to ethics laws from Congress that regulate justices’ acceptance and disclosure of gifts, limit their outside employment income, and mandate recusal in some circumstances.

If Alito or any of the other justices had argued during their confirmation processes that Congress can’t regulate the Supreme Court, or that justices are not obligated to obey ethics laws, they may not have been approved by the Senate.

Responding to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s questionnaire in 2005, Alito wrote: “If confirmed, in matters involving recusal I would seek to follow the Code of Conduct for United States Judges (although it is not formally binding on justices of the Supreme Court of the United States), the Ethics Reform Act of 1989, 28 U.S.C. § 455, and any other relevant guidelines.”

As ProPublica has reported, at least two current Supreme Court justices — Alito and Clarence Thomas — have apparently failed to comply with a federal gift law that Alito pledged to follow.

The Fixes – Fix the Court

The Breathtaking Hypocrisy of Justice Alito

June 26, 2023 / CounterPoint

#scotusiscorrupt

The hedge fund of Justice Samuel Alito’s billionaire benefactor has been using a recent Alito-backed Supreme Court ruling to try to pressure federal regulators to back off new financial rules designed to fight fraud, according to documents reviewed by The Lever.

The hedge fund, Elliott Management, has been arguing that the rules are unconstitutional, and could ultimately try to bring a case before Alito to strike down the new regulations if they are enacted. The high court is currently considering a petition to hear a separate case involving the same firm.

ProPublica this week reported that Elliott Management founder, president, and co-CEO Paul Singer provided an undisclosed private jet flight to Alito, and has been a major donor to the Judicial Crisis Network, a dark money group that has funded campaigns to install conservative judges throughout the judiciary — including Alito. The justice has declined to recuse himself in past cases involving the hedge fund.

In early June, the SEC finalized part of the proposed anti-fraud rule but just reopened the public comment period for the disclosure rule that Elliott was fighting.

Nonetheless, the SEC’s proposed rules set up a potential court battle between the agency and Elliott, which could ultimately be decided in part by Singer’s Alaska fishing partner, Alito.

Elliott’s efforts to weaponize a recent Supreme Court case to block anti-fraud rules — and to potentially use the high court to kill them — spotlights how judges are in key positions to help billionaires who provide them with gifts and other largesse.

Alito Could Deliver Another Ruling For Billionaire Benefactor

Are you rich enough to deserve free speech or the right to vote?

June 22, 2023 / CounterPoint

On Nov. 14, 2008, the Supreme Court ruling in “Citizens United” gave corporations the same rights as American citizens by allowing corporations to contribute unlimited amounts of money to political campaigns. The Supreme Court did this by defining money as free speech.

Doesn’t money as free speech promote multiple votes for some citizens and only one vote for others? Doesn’t money as free speech defeat the essential idea of democracy? Even if such nonsense made sense, does it make sense for a corporate officer to vote once as himself and a second time as the corporation? Isn’t that “one man, two votes”?

Steve Schmidt and ProPublica writer Justin Elliott discuss ProPublica’s latest reporting on Justice Samuel Alito taking a luxury fishing vacation with GOP billionaires who later had cases before the Supreme Court. They also discuss Clarence Thomas’ previous conflicts of interest, if this corruption goes on with all Supreme Court Justices, and what the Court can do to regain the trust of the American people.

00:00 – What is ProPublica?

03:04 – Investigating Samuel Alito & Clarence Thomas

09:28 – Harlan Crowe’s involvement

14:17 – Samuel Alito’s corruption

38:30 – Steve Schmidt’s first-hand experience with Samuel Alito

46:00 – Are the other Supreme Court Justices corrupt?

Thomas and Alito Voted to Overturn the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act

June 21, 2023 / CounterPoint

The Supreme Court has preserved a federal law giving preference to Native American families when it comes to adopting Native children in foster care. The court’s 7-2 ruling Thursday leaves in place the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act, which aims to reverse centuries of government-sanctioned efforts to weaken tribal identity by separating Native American children from their families and raising them outside their tribal cultures.

The law requires states to notify tribes when adoption cases involve their members or children eligible for tribal membership, and to try to place them with their extended family, their tribe or other Native American families. It was enacted to address historic injustices: Before the law took effect, between 25% and 35% of Native American children were being taken from their families and placed with adoptive families, in foster care or in institutions. The majority were placed with white families or in boarding schools in attempts to assimilate them. A series of scandals involving the long-closed boarding schools shed light on government-sanctioned efforts to wipe out Native culture by cutting their hair and forbidding them from speaking their languages.

A ProPublica investigation published the morning of the decision suggests that the law is unevenly applied across the states. The story profiled the case of Cheyenne Hinojosa, a Native American mother in South Dakota who lost her parental rights for one of her children due to the child welfare agency’s failure to follow ICWA. A ProPublica analysis found that in South Dakota, more than 700 Native American children — or about one of every 40 living in the state — experienced the termination of their parents’ rights from 2017 to 2021. It’s one of the highest rates in the country.

The Supreme Court Upheld the Indian Child Welfare Act. The Long Struggle to Implement the Law Continues.

Crows Of A Feather

June 6, 2023 / CounterPoint

Clarence Thomas’ benefactor is directly tied to a disastrous new Supreme Court ruling that will strip environmental protections from millions of acres of precious wetlands.

Despite being caught in a swirling corruption scandal, the Supreme Court continues to rule on cases and issue far-reaching decisions that shatter years of precedent to rewrite the country’s laws. For the moneyed interests who have spent big to financially influence the courts, this is very much according to plan. One of the court’s latest bombshell rulings shows just how handsomely the effort is paying off.

Late last month, in a 5-4 ruling on the Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency case, the Supreme Court dramatically narrowed the scope of the 1972 Clean Water Act in an act of judicial activism so brazen, even the Donald Trump-appointed Brett Kavanaugh accused the court of “rewriting” the law and failing to “stick to the text.”

To do so, Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, simply disposed of the statute’s deliberately broad coverage of wetlands that are “adjacent” to “waters of the United States,” redefining that word as meaning “adjoining” — a different word with a different meaning — and claiming that only wetlands with a “continuous surface connection” to protected waters were covered by the Clean Water Act. Environmental groups say it will take away protections for more than half of the country’s 118 million acres of wetlands.

The point, Schneck explained, was to create what Politico termed an “ecosystem of support” that would encourage them to be bolder in their judicial activism. Sometimes that would benefit the benefactors by opening the door to imposing their personal, regressive social vision on others. Sometimes it would benefit them by directly assisting their personal business interests, as it has in the Sackett case, which will make it easier for Crow’s companies and other real estate developers to disrupt and damage wetlands without legal or regulatory challenge.

That decision — widely criticized for its linguistic games and overturning of long-standing precedent — is directly tied up in the corruption scandal that has embroiled Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in particular.

Clarence Thomas’ Billionaire Benefactor Tied To SCOTUS Bombshell