Pro Publica reports:
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.
Read the full article.
New: In the years after the undisclosed trip to Alaska, Republican megadonor Paul Singer’s hedge fund has repeatedly had business before the Supreme Court. Alito has never recused himself. https://t.co/lIc4oQcTNQ
— ProPublica (@propublica) June 21, 2023
The billionaire hedge fund manager who paid for Alito’s trip & later had business before the Supreme Court has given nearly $20,000 to Tom Cotton’s campaign and leadership PAC, starting in 2013. His family members have also made several max donations to Cotton. pic.twitter.com/A8by9FP5fu
— Roger Sollenberger (@SollenbergerRC) June 21, 2023
ProPublica has leveled two charges against me. Neither charge is valid, writes Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. https://t.co/fna0S5Xo1Z
— Wall Street Journal Opinion (@WSJopinion) June 20, 2023
Dear @propublica: There is a phrase that describes what Justice Samuel Alito did here with his bizarre pre-rebuttal piece to a story he hadn’t even read:
“consciousness of guilt.” https://t.co/BaOfwgQbmx
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) June 21, 2023
Oh, my, the questions:
First, who orchestrated this weird pre-buttal with the infamous WSJ Polluter Page, and did Alito get help from a PR firm?
If so, who paid?https://t.co/vPRbOgfsRC
— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) June 21, 2023
.@DahliaLithwick gets it. The antics of Alito and Thomas are deeply troubling to normal people. If you know a federal judge, ask them if they could get away with the secret billionaire gifts to Thomas. The answer is an obvious no.https://t.co/ekehEu24Fk
— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) June 20, 2023
How does Sam Alito, one of the most powerful politicians in the United States of America, not have one (1) political communications advisor who can tell him that, if you release an angry prebuttal to a news story that hasn’t even run yet, you just create hype around that story?
— Ian Millhiser (@imillhiser) June 21, 2023