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.
https://www.propublica.org/article/samuel-alito-luxury-fishing-trip-paul-singer-scotus-supreme-court
Alito did put out his own statement. Unfortunately it’s on WSJ and thoroughly paywalled: https://www.wsj.com/articles/propublica-misleads-its-readers-alito-gifts-disclosure-alaska-singer-23b51eda
Edit: non-paywalled summary of Alito’s stonewalling https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4060023-alito-propublica-report-on-luxury-vacation-misleading/
TLDR: “Nothing to see here, move along. And who is ProPublica to question me anyways? -Alito”
He didn’t just “put out his own statement”. Propublica reached out to him for comment on this article, he didn’t respond and then he scrambled to have an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal hours later (always worth saying that that is a Rupert Murdoch owned company). It was a poor attempt at damage control by a weasel trying to get ahead on spinning the narrative.
Wonderful journalism, wow. I will say that it did take too long to read that Leonard Leo planned/coordinated the whole trip. This Supreme Court is so fully out in the open fucked.
In a legitimate society with a sliver of integrity this would not be tolerated.
Alito said that he was invited to fly on Singer’s plane shortly before the trip and that the seat “would have otherwise been vacant.” He defended his failure to report the trip to the public, writing that justices “commonly interpreted” the disclosure requirements to not include “accommodations and transportation for social events.”
This is such an insane defense. Yeah, this casual acquaintance of yours just got you a $100k personal flight for the giggles.
Corruption on full display … with zero consequences.
The really telling thing is, I skipped this article the first time because, “Yeah, we know, this isn’t news.” Took me another look to catch that this was Alito, not Thomas.
If you’re going to ever say, “yeah, we know…” you should take a moment to acknowledge that was the exact strategy of bombarding the public with a constant stream of scandal, crime and controversy - to numb you to real issues like this, worth actual outrage and attention.
I know it’s overwhelming, I feel it too, but I work to not indulge that feeling when I can avoid it. Glad you came back a second time and read the article.
Oh, 100%. And I was being slightly glib, more of a “oh, they found more?” feeling when I thought it was Thomas. Not really a numbing of outrage as much as just another data point. But you’re completely right about the strategy.
Great, I figured as much. Too many people use the blanket, “Uh yeah, we know…” as an excuse to ignore reality that demands some sort of response and relieve the guilt of tuning out.
Must be really depressing when a crooked Supreme Court Justice story comes out, and there’s more than one possibility for who is referring to.
My condolences to America tbh.
Alito seems untouchable, there are dozens of stories like this about him and his wife.
When the Thomas bribery story came out, Elie Mystal said something like, “You’re telling us that this justice can handle the most complex legal cases but doesn’t understand ethics laws?” Same applies here. They didn’t think they would get caught.
That is quite a thorough and damning article. It’s infuriating how openly corrupt some members of the supreme court are. Even more infuriating that they get away with it, and that almost certainly won’t change because the wealthy own this country.
Members of the SCOTUS are crooked and on the take.
impeach and remove. or we should just stop listening to them. they don’t have an army to enforce their rulings. not that any left leaning president* would have the balls to do so, but it would be the moral thing to do at this point.
There’s no mechanism iirc.
I want it to happen to, I want them to have to report to an ethics committee yearly and if something smells fishy (and this time a little bit like salmon) they should have a trust vote by the American public.
Is it any wonder? The money will always try to influence politics and the Supreme Court is the smallest number of individuals with power besides the president. Get a few on your side and so is the law
