It's partisan. It's no coincidence that the side disagreeing with all the EFFECTS of the decisions (not necessarily even the legal interpretations - those tend not to get addressed) is the one calling it corrupt.
- There is a partisan component when democrats criticize the effect of cases like Dobbs, Janus, and Trump v. USA. This definitely exists.
- There is definitely a legal interpretation component. I heard some good analysis on legal interpretation on NPR around the Chevron deference when Loper v. Raimondo happened. They had on law professors, federal lawyers, and even one of the lawyers who argued the original Chevron case. There was a lot of content educating people on the history of Chevron deference, what it means, and what the new ruling might mean for regulators in the future. I've also seen a lot of discussion poking holes in the unitary executive theory (on the left) and justifying it (on the right). You sometimes have to dig to find this - long discussions on legal theory don't exactly make for compelling media.
- Finally, there is a "corruption on the SCOTUS" component. I would argue that the timing here is partisan, but the material is not. The conflicts of interest documented are factual, and the calls to adopt a code of ethics should have been a nonpartisan issue. Personally, I believe that the GOP learned the wrong lesson from the Nixon impeachment and Bork nomination and has adopted a more doveish stance on balancing political power versus corruption within their party, and the partisan lean of the SCOTUS scandals is a consequence of this.
That this is regarded as partisan by anyone is why we're screwed. The revelations about Thomas should have had all of Washington after his head. Nope, it's "partisan" so zero action taken and normal people are even confused enough about it that here we are, having this exchange. If that doesn't scare you, it should.
> Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg disclosed taking more trips than any other justice in 2018, totaling 14. She visited Tel Aviv, Israel where she was awarded a lifetime achievement award by the Genesis Prize Foundation. Shortly following the award ceremony, she disclosed being provided transportation, food and lodging as a tourist and guest of billionaire Israeli businessman Morris Kahn. Companies spawned by Kahn have had had business before the Supreme Court before. The high court handed Amdocs Limited a win in November 2017 when it declined to take up a patent-related case.
> Justice Stephen Breyer disclosed a dozen trips, three of which were supported by the wealthy Chicago-based Pritzker family. Breyer took two trips related to his position on the Pritzker Prize for Architecture jury, which honors architects each year. Breyer has served on the Pritzker jury since 2011 and became chair in 2018. He also disclosed taking a one-week trip to Ireland and Spain as part of the “Pritzker Fly-Around Program,” which paid for his transportation, lodging and meals. Breyer has taken 219 reimbursed trips since 2004, more than any other sitting justice.
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/06/scotus-justices-rac...
The Republican members weren't disclosing anything, including on their required reporting, until they got caught, years after the fact. There's also tons of just super corrupt stuff, like Harlan Crow buying Clarence Thomas's mothers home for him for above market rate, and letting her continue to live there literally rent free.
Sotomayor, for example, failed to disclose receiving a free trip [1]
Jackson failed to disclose stuff as well [2]
There are more examples but it is clear that the liberal justices have failed to disclose stuff and have also been receiving trips from billionaires.
[1] https://fixthecourt.com/2022/06/justice-sotomayor-amends-fin...
[2] https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/09/jacksons-financial-disclo...
Ask yourself this: why are you only hearing about this 13 years later? This wasn't a big deal when the allegedly problematic ruling on the hedge fund came down, only when the ruling on Roe v. Wade did.
I won't comment on the factual accuracy of the claims in the article. I haven't investigated them thoroughly, so I don't have an informed opinion on them. But if you want a rebuttal, maybe read the response from Alito linked to in the article? https://www.wsj.com/articles/propublica-misleads-its-readers...
Parts of Alito's response are extremely difficult to believe.
> Until a few months ago, the instructions for completing a Financial Disclosure Report told judges that “[p]ersonal hospitality need not be reported,”
Alito intentionally cuts out the rest of this sentence. The law says "except that any food, lodging, or entertainment received as personal hospitality of an individual need not be reported". Obviously a private jet flight does not qualify as any of these categories. Why did he ignore that part of the law?
> My recollection is that I have spoken to Mr. Singer on no more than a handful of occasions, all of which (with the exception of small talk during a fishing trip 15 years ago) consisted of brief and casual comments at events attended by large groups.
On a multi-day fishing trip with a very small group, where you were personally hosted by Paul Singer, you only made small talk? You flew on his private jet, and were photographed multiple times posing with him in front of a tiny boat or plane that only held a handful of people, so you must have spent many hours with him and only a couple other people. It is completely unbelievable that anybody in this situation with a sitting supreme court justice would only make small talk.
Why did he invite you, if he didn't care about your position as a justice and you barely knew each other?
> when I was invited shortly before the event
Who invited you?
> Had I taken commercial flights, that would have imposed a substantial cost and inconvenience on the deputy U.S. Marshals who would have been required for security reasons to assist me.
Alito does not address the third option of not going. What was this event and why was it important he attend? He doesn't say.
It seems to me the more likely explanation is that nobody who might be inclined to report on it, knew about it then.
You could say it was just coincidence, but this isn't the only story making accusations against conservative justices that came out right after the Dobbs decision. I'd say its far more likely the result of opposition research. Which doesn't necessarily mean its not true, just that you should take it with a few extra grains of salt.
I would agree that it appears to be an alarmingly widespread problem.
I completely agree.
Do you read Alito’s rebuttal you linked as an actual rebuttal of the events? It reads as a “yeah, sure, but it’s fine, trust me” to me.
No we wouldn’t. The contention that “plenty of us” would be fired for going on a fishing trip is farcical on its face and even more laughable when you consider how much is given away in the private sector for “business development” or “marketing” reasons.
We get it. You don’t like the conservative justices. There’s no reason to start making ridiculous statements that make you look like an ideological chicken little. While you’re all over this thread hating on Alito and Thomas, I don’t see you saying much about Kagan and Breyer. Why is that?
If someone did business with our company and I was in any way connected with decisions regarding that, and it turned out they’d spent tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars on gifts for me, yeah, I would, even if there was no straight line between the gifts and them later getting what they want, and even if I said I didn’t know, because I should have known. And there are industries with far more scrutiny and stricter rules than the one I’m in. Millions of employees are in the same boat.
These aren’t branded bic pens or a box of doughnuts. C’mon. What’s farcical is pretending this isn’t naked corruption that would get smacked down despite any protestations of “lol it’s fine, trust me” or “oh sorry I didn’t know” from the perpetrators in any other context.
> While you’re all over this thread hating on Alito and Thomas, I don’t see you saying much about Kagan and Breyer. Why is that?
Because the topic has been Alito, and because the known gifts the two you name have received in the last 20 years are under $20,000 combined while Alito’s alone is 10x their combined total(!) and Thomas has received gifts amounting to at least $4m(!!!) in the same time frame. There are two outliers and they both happen to be Republicans, who also have both failed to report really large gifts, not just “whoops I forgot about that $50 lunch”
Let’s absolutely audit the shit out of all of them, I’m entirely on board. Let’s get an investigation right up in these too-powerful-to-touch folks’ finances and see what we find for all of them. Definitely would love to see that. Several of the sub-six-figure gift totals seem too high, too. Drag them all before Congress, subpoena their bank records, by all means, and to all of them, sure.
But what we know now is that two are exceptionally-bad even by lax Supreme Court standards. Maybe more are, too, and I’d say what we know already is enough that they should all have their lives turned upside down to see how far this goes.
Nahhh.
>> Because the topic has been Alito
You elsewhere in this comment section: “I'll be upset with liberal justices, too, if evidence turns up that any of them are being bribed on a grand scale by billionaires.”
Your partisanship is showing.
Y—yes, though? I’m dead certain I’d be out the door over that. It’s a pretty common set of policies and that wouldn’t be considered a grey area, or even in sight of a grey area. I’d need serious company-politics pull to have any hope. Have you worked for large companies? Small ones may not emphasize this as much (the ones I’ve been at didn’t)
> You elsewhere in this comment section: “I'll be upset with liberal justices, too, if evidence turns up that any of them are being bribed on a grand scale by billionaires.”
Yes. Got something you want to bring up? Not sure if the relevance of your quoting me there to any of the rest of this, but if you’re trying to broach that topic, absolutely, show me the reporting.
> Your partisanship is showing.
I’m beginning to think this isn’t exactly a good faith discussion, though.
One's reputation is damaged when they choose to tell a lie, not when someone else points it out.
Similarly, when someone accepts a bribe, they have damaged their integrity. That damage was not done by the person who exposes the bribe, but by the person who chose to accept the bribe.
Put another way: unethical behavior is unethical regardless of whether one gets caught while engaging in it.