So ProPublica has another story about a Supreme Court justice accepting trips from a billionaire -- and this time, it's Sam Alito.
In early July 2008, Samuel Alito stood on a riverbank in a remote corner of Alaska. The Supreme Court justice was on vacation at a luxury fishing lodge that charged more than $1,000 a day, and after catching a king salmon nearly the size of his leg, Alito posed for a picture. To his left, a man stood beaming: Paul Singer, a hedge fund billionaire who has repeatedly asked the Supreme Court to rule in his favor in high-stakes business disputes.
Singer was more than a fellow angler. He flew Alito to Alaska on a private jet. If the justice chartered the plane himself, the cost could have exceeded $100,000 one way.
In the years that followed, Singer’s hedge fund came before the court at least 10 times in cases where his role was often covered by the legal press and mainstream media. In 2014, the court agreed to resolve a key issue in a decade-long battle between Singer’s hedge fund and the nation of Argentina. Alito did not recuse himself from the case and voted with the 7-1 majority in Singer’s favor. The hedge fund was ultimately paid $2.4 billion.
Alito did not report the 2008 fishing trip on his annual financial disclosures. By failing to disclose the private jet flight Singer provided, Alito appears to have violated a federal law that requires justices to disclose most gifts, according to ethics law experts.
ProPublica contacted Alito's office, and of course Alito responded by... running to the Wall St. Journal op-ed page with his petulant excuses. No, not even excuses -- more along the lines of, "How DARE you?"
Rupert Murdoch's WSJ is behind a paywall, so I'll give you the short version: "If I didn't take that seat on that private jet, it just would have been empty! Wahh!"
"I don't remember drinking any $1000-a-bottle wine, even though it was a member of my entourage who bragged about it. Wahh!"
"How am I supposed to know some LLC that has a case before the Court is owned by my billionaire friend who takes me on luxury trips? That's so HARD!!! Wahhh!"
I've written before that my friend was secretary to the president judge of the 3rd Circuit while Alito was there, and that said judge invariably referred to him as "that right-wing asshole." So yes, he's always been like this.
