The big Supreme Court news today is that Sam Alito once accepted a fishing vacation in Alaska that was arranged and paid for by a guy named Robin Arkley II. Other guests on the trip included Leonard Leo, head of the Federalist Society, and Paul Singer, a hedge fund zillionaire.
ProPublica, which broke the story, sent Alito questions on Friday and asked for a response by Tuesday. This gave Alito the time to write a pre-buttal in the Wall Street Journal opinion page before ProPublica even had a chance to release its story. This is considered bad form, but it's one of the risks of modern journalism.
I hate to say it, but it's kind of a weak story and Alito probably has the best of it:
- It involves a single 3-day trip in 2008. That's 15 years ago, a time when the court's ethics advisors said that such a trip didn't have to be disclosed. (There is, however, some question about whether the free private jet that Singer provided for Alito and Leo should have been reported.¹)
- Robin Arkley II, who organized and funded the trip, has apparently never had business before the Supreme Court.
- So instead the story focuses on Singer, who has indeed had business before the court. But Alito makes a reasonable case that he barely even talked to Singer and had no idea he was a party to any of the cases brought before the court.
The nickel summary here is that the whole story is about a single trip that cost a few thousand dollars 15 years ago. The law at the time was (a) clear that Alito didn't have to disclose the food and lodging, (b) a little muddy about whether he had to disclose the private jet, and (c) more or less silent on whether Alito's apparently mild relationship with Singer was enough to require him to recuse himself when Singer's Elliott Management brought cases before the court.
Overall, I'd say that Alito showed bad judgment here, but it doesn't seem like he did anything illegal.
¹Here's the relevant text of what Alito was and wasn't required to disclose:
In paragraph A, there's a clear exemption for food, lodging, and entertainment, but nothing about travel. In paragraph B, the law suggests that a "travel itinerary" should be disclosed if it's a "reimbursement."
Alito claims he follows the advice of Judicial Conference, which interprets the law to say that disclosure is exempt for "hospitality . . . on property or facilities owned by [a] person." Alito then makes a long and convoluted argument that "facilities" has always included travel.
But this is all pretty sketchy, especially in light of Paragraph B, which specifically mentions that a travel itinerary isn't exempted if it's a reimbursement. Was Alito's free trip a reimbursement? Not in normal usage, I think, but it may be a term of art here.
Long story short, the private jet business is a dog's breakfast. I don't know what its legal status is.
Kevin is often inexplicably contrarian and more obtuse than Warden Norton, but this may take the cake. For a far, far better take on this, actually sourced from Planet Earth, see Josh Marshall at TPM, a much more astute political commentator than Kevin, who considers this a huge story and yet another example of how Leonard Leo (who is deeply entangled here as in the Thomas stories, but unmentioned by Kevin) and his network of right wing billionaires have basically adopted sugar justices.
Yeah, this also fits under intentionally contrarian for me, too.
In what world is accepting a luxury vacation "personal hospitality"?
Many people, experts and otherwise, consider personal hospitality providing food and lodging in a facility that one owns, not picking up the thousand a day tab at a commercial up market hunting lodge.
Leo seems to have been busy over the years using the Federalists Society to bring together Supreme Court justices and conservative businessmen with millions, sometimes even billions, to burn and helping them to forge close personal relationships. What could possibly be wrong with such a situation? Short answer: everything.
I would add that, almost certainly as was the case with Thomas, the Alaska fishing trip is not the only really nice perk Alito has received from this guy as well as others.
Yes indeed one reason journalists run these stories which happened “15 years ago” is to smoke out sources who tell them about other similar stories. In fact that’s surely what happened here. After the Thomas stories, someone said something along the lines of “there are some Alito stories too” to someone at ProPublica.
As a federal employee I can't take so much as a cookie from someone I could even potentially do business with.
The fact that much more powerful people can accept much more expensive gifts that can impact much more momentous decisions and have it be perfectly legal is both enraging and not surprise.
Those rules are odd, though.
I can't buy anyone who works for my company's auditor a cup of coffee, but I can invite then to my house for dinner.
Remember when officials tried to avoid not only impropriety but the appearance of it? I miss those days. Now we're at convoluted discussions about whether his actions were in technical violation of the law and -- more importantly -- with the assumption we shouldn't worry about it unless his is.
What annoys me about this is the way Alito attempted to deprive Pro Publica of its small but nevertheless significant scoop. You expect this kind of behavior from craven politicians; Supreme Court justices should hold themselves to a higher standard.
Try reading this analysis from Jonathan Chait (https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/06/samuel-alito-ethics-recusal-defense-paul-singer-plane-wall-street-journal.html), Kevin, where Chait notes that Alito simultaneously claims that Singer is a good enough friend that the personal hospitality exemption applies (so he doesn't have to disclose the trip) *and* that Singer is a stranger who couldn't possibly influence Alito's jurisprudence.
His WSJ freakout was worth it.
He's so cute when all worked up about what the proles think.
It's not cute when he exercises, along with 6 other conservative ideologues, near-dictatorial power over federal law.
I once offered a security guard at a government facility a bagel, and he refused on grounds that he wasn't allowed to accept any gifts.
I've been on both sides of various grant review panels, and the rules about conflict of interest are way, way more stringent than anything Alito or Thomas are following.
Dog’s breakfast— a mess
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dog%27s%20breakfast
The standard is APPEARANCE of impropriety. Appearance. Alito knows this.
I have to be very careful as a lawyer or I can get slammed.
I'd love to see the argument that either of the following is the case:
1) Alito's relationship with Singer is stronger than Kagan's with (random Harvard Law professor or) Harvard as an institution
2) Kagan should recuse herself in any case where Harvard or a Harvard Law professor is a party, counsel, or amicus
(Worth noting that the Elliott Management case was a 7-1 decision, so Alito recusing himself wouldn't have changed anything.)
If Alito recusing himself wouldn't have changed anything, then why didn't Alito go ahead and recuse himself to avoid even the appearance of possible conflict of interest? Because rules are for little people, lower-level judges, and such.
And if, hypothetically, we accept this supposed equivalence, what do you suppose that changes?
"Kagan should recuse herself in any case where Harvard or a Harvard Law professor is a party, counsel, or amicus"
How about in any case where said "Harvard or Harvard Law professor" with a free all-inclusive fishing trip to Alaska while she was a SCOTUS justice?
'Cuz the issue isn't really justices *knowing* people or even being friends with people, but with this weird situation in which rich and/or politically connected folks sure do seem to like giving Justices expensive presents of the sort that all other federal employees are precluded from receiving, and some of the Justices seem to think there's nothing wrong whatsoever with being so lavished upon.
I love the thought process here. "I barely know the billionaire who paid for my expensive vacation. But he's my close personal friend so there was no need to declare the expenses."
Alito's current story may be "weak sauce" but I'm not sure why we keep giving them the benefit of the doubt. Clarence Thomas' experience should have all the other justices searching through their histories for "problems" so things like this won't be "sprung" on them, plus the justices are not noobs when it comes to judicial ethics -- they are expected to be better informed, more aware of the boundaries and the relationships between their awesome power and the expectation that they, more than anyone, should be above reproach. If they have to play word games to justify their actions then they're just wrong.
Does paying for what appears to be an expensive vacation amount to "food, lodging and entertainment received as personal hospitality"? It doesn't seem to be in quite the same class as having him over for dinner and then letting him spend the night in the guest room.
You think this is reasonable? Really? "I pay so little attention to the billionaires who are paying my tab I don't even KNOW if they have business before the court?"
You seem very, very focused on "did Alito do anything technically illegal," as opposed to the actual takeaway here, which is that Alito is enmeshed in Leonard Leo's ongoing judicial corruption project, and rather than simply saying 'yeah, I should have either not taken these gifts or reported them even if I thought I didn't have to, that's on me' he decided to get the WSJ to give him editorial space to issue a prebuttal to an article that hadn't even been published yet, which is shockingly bad behavior on both his part and that of the WSJs.
This is you thinking Alito has the better of ProPublica? For real? A sitting Supreme Court Justice behaving in this way is not "bad form." It is simply bad.
For Supreme Court judges, Thomas and Alito sure invoke ignorance as a defence a lot.
I dunno it seems that the Justices are selective in their company and that might weigh into the decision making. Which is apparently crucial in calling balls and strikes fairly and for the good of the nation.
I've invited the man to my annual wiener roast in my backyard every year since 2013. We've got all the best. Milwaukee's Best, there's Old Style if you'd like instead, Hebrew National franks, sport peppers, NO ketchup, plenty of coleslaw, and I graciously pay for round-trip tickets on Greyhound. He never takes me up on it. Hasn't even responded to the invitations.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Probably because there didn't just happen to be an empty seat on the Greyhound. See, your buying his bus ticket would have violated his ethical standards. Next time try buying the whole bus and making sure there's an extra seat.
My wife got out of jury duty once when the judge looked at the jury panel and dismissed her because he knew her socially. Poor guy just doesn't have what it takes to serve on the Supreme Court.
Too busy hanging at the Wal Mart parking lot, apparently.
The Alito private jet story is pretty weak tea considering the universal acceptance of the higher immorality.
You know what we need to do? We need to allow Alito and Thomas to accept free rides on the OceanGate submersible to explore the Titanic. It may be corruption to the tune of $250K apiece, but I bet you could get many liberals to support it.
How do we live in a country where a Supreme Court Justice accepting gifts worth thousands of dollars from anyone outside his immediate family is considered remotely acceptable?
This is completely nuts.
Agree entirely. The justices are supposed to be (should be) above the appearance of impropriety, no ifs and or buts.
I think all federal workers would not take these favors without some ethics branch guidance and clearance, at a minimum. The fact that Alito and Thomas refused to disclose the gifts makes wonder whether the knew what they were doing (they did). The empty seat explanation is the most ridiculous thing I have heard today. It makes you wonder if he really is that stupid and also on the judgment he uses when evaluating legal arguments. What we need now is for all justices to disclose all their non-paid travel arrangements during their time in the court.
I've long thought that Alito is, honestly, fucking stupid. Whatever one might say about Thomas or the other conservafuck judges, they're not stupid. Even Scalia wasn't stupid.
Alito has always seemed rather dull.
So who said it was illegal? There’s a huge gray area between illegal and improper. The point to this is that gray area should be narrowed. Considerably.
Josh Marshall does a better job of placing this in context:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/leonard-leos-scotus-fedsoc-sponsor-family-program
Let's agree never to nominate Drum to a judgeship eh? To me the most clear signal that this matters is that Scalito wrote a spittle flicked pre-screed trying to get ahead of it. Also unlike Crowe, Singer himself has had cases come up.
KD: "But Alito makes a reasonable case that he barely even talked to Singer and had no idea he was a party to any of the cases brought before the court."
Alas, that is not a reasonable claim:
* Singer's investment advisory firm is Elliott Investment Management and he is highly personally identified with Elliott. (Cf. "I had no idea that Mr. Buffett had any relationship to a company called Berkshire Hathaway"; "I had no idea that Mr. Zuckerberg had any interest in a case involving Facebook.")
* Elliott's lawsuit against Argentina about the bond default was one of the most intensely-reported securities cases of the last quarter century. Google "Singer Argentina lawsuit" and you should find 100+ articles.
* What did Justice Alito think Paul Singer did for a living, anyway?
Long story short: just because you may not have heard of Paul Singer before today — which is perfectly legitimate, I hasten to say! — does not mean that it is plausible that a Supreme Court Justice considering the Elliott case would be entirely unaware of that connection.
Funny how these justices never seem to know what the people they are vacationing with do.
The fundamental problem here is that no one has supervisory authority over Supreme Court Justices. They have a level of job security that makes academic tenure look weak. And we now know that Thomas and Alito have both been taking full advantage of that. Right now they are both basically flipping off the public, and smirking while doing so. They are doing this because they believe - correctly! - that no one can do anything about it.
I expect that in the future SCOTUS corruption will get worse, not better. Gawd only knows what Kavanaugh will get up to after seeing what those two have been getting away with.
I'm not sure Kavanaugh has the balls to do so, TBH.
I understand that being a justice of SCOTUS is a sought after and cushy lifetime job. Would there be an exodus of qualified candidates if Congress passed a law prohibiting justices to accept any hospitality at all? Seems like a small price to pay for a highly prestigious and moderately lucrative life time appointment.
As pointed out by Andrew Weissman, Alito has found time to write this op-ed for WSJ, but has yet to find time to complete his financial disclosure forms for this year. There's something fundamentally wrong with that set of priorities.
All right we are two nations.
Glad to see that Kevin has basically no defenders for this utterly risible piece; he really needs to think long and hard about reconsidering this. And it would be a good idea for him (and everybody else) to read the Josh Marshall take on this that I spoke about, especially since a subsequent poster here kindly provided a link and it's short. (It is behind a pay wall though.)
Today at Queen of Stupid High School,
https://nordot.app/1044410243200237733?c=592622757532812385
Is absurd contrarianism a side effect of myeloma treatment? Not being snarky, but I have a relative currently dealing with many of the same health issues as KD, that swore up and down that it was better to not have assigned seating on an overbooked train from Boston to NYC in the 1990s. He loved standing in the aisles for 8+ hours. Like KD he was a cranky contrarian before, but now is taking it to absurd levels. “You may think avoiding getting stabbed in the eye is a good practice, but get me an ice pick stat. I will show you why you are wrong. We will have to agree to disagree.” That was almost a verbatim verbal exchange from my last encounter with him.
What a ridiculous attempt at normalizing corruption.
- It was just a little corruption (compared to the other corrupt justices) that we know about!
- Hey look over there! Someone (but not everyone LOL!) involved never had business before the court.
- Maybe we should assume Alito didnt know anything about the people he was paid to go on vacations with! MAYBE!!
LOL, what a disaster.