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, reported ProPublica. 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.
Paul Singer, a hedge fund billionaire who has repeatedly asked the Supreme Court to rule in his favor in high-stakes business disputes 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.
Experts said they could not identify an instance of
a justice ruling on a case after receiving an expensive gift paid for by one of
the parties.
“If you were good friends, what were you doing ruling
on his case?” said Charles Geyh, an Indiana University law professor and
leading expert
on recusals. “And if you weren’t good friends, what were you doing
accepting this?” referring to the flight on the private jet.
Justices are almost entirely left to police
themselves on ethical issues, with few restrictions on what gifts they can
accept. When a potential conflict arises, the sole arbiter of whether a justice
should step away from a case is the justice him or herself.
ProPublica’s investigation sheds new light on how
luxury travel has given prominent political donors — including one who has had
cases before the Supreme Court — intimate access to the most powerful judges in
the country. Another wealthy businessman provided expensive vacations to two
members of the high court, ProPublica found. On his Alaska trip, Alito stayed
at a commercial fishing lodge owned by this businessman, who was also a major conservative
donor. Three years before, that same businessman flew Justice Antonin Scalia,
who died in 2016, on a private jet to Alaska and paid the bill for his stay.
Such trips would be unheard of for the vast majority
of federal workers, who are generally barred from taking even modest gifts.
Leonard Leo, the longtime leader of the conservative
Federalist Society, attended and helped organize the Alaska fishing vacation.
Leo invited Singer to join, according to a person familiar with the trip, and
asked Singer if he and Alito could fly on the billionaire’s jet. Leo had
recently played an important role in the justice’s confirmation to the court.
Singer and the lodge owner were both major donors to Leo’s political groups.
ProPublica’s examination of Alito’s and Scalia’s
travel drew on trip planning emails, Alaska fishing licenses, and interviews
with dozens of people including private jet pilots, fishing guides, former
high-level employees of both Singer and the lodge owner, and other guests on
the trips.
ProPublica sent Alito a list of detailed questions
last week, and on Tuesday, the Supreme Court’s head spokeswoman told ProPublica
that Alito would not be commenting. Several hours later, The Wall Street
Journal published
an op-ed by Alito responding to ProPublica’s questions about the trip.
Alito said that when Singer’s companies came before
the court, the justice was unaware of the billionaire’s connection to the
cases. He said he recalled speaking to Singer on “no more than a handful of
occasions,” and they never discussed Singer’s business or issues before the
court.
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.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for Singer told
ProPublica that Singer didn’t organize the trip and that he wasn’t aware Alito
would be attending when he accepted the invitation. Singer “never discussed his
business interests” with the justice, the spokesperson said, adding that at the
time of trip, neither Singer nor his companies had “any pending matters before
the Supreme Court, nor could Mr. Singer have anticipated in 2008 that a
subsequent matter would arise that would merit Supreme Court review.”
Leo did not respond to questions about his
organizing the trip but said in a
statement that he “would never presume to tell” Alito and Scalia “what
to do.”
To read more CLICK HERE
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment