Friends, if you thought Clarence Thomas had it in the bag to be the most corrupt Supreme Court Justice sitting on the bench right now, Samuel Alito has said hold my beer and is making his moves to claim that title. The race is on, and the entire country is worse off for it. Thanks, Republicans you put both these men on the bench!
In case you forgot, Thomas has been the leading contender for the most corrupt and all-around awful person when it came out about two months ago that he has a Republican sugar daddy who took him on expensive trips (don’t worry, they obviously wouldn’t talk about work on those vacations, wink wink) and who also collects nazi memorabilia. A totally normal hobby (if you’re a nazi). That’s pretty awful, so it appeared that Thomas would all but clinch the title of “Worst Person on The Supreme Court,” which is saying something because Brett Kavanaugh is there, too.
However, ProPublica—which broke the story on Thomas—has published a damning article that Samuel Alito also has a sugar daddy who has taken him on at least one expensive trip, but more than that, has had cases heard before the Supreme Court, and just like that, Alito is back in contention! Per ProPublica:
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.
I mean, look. Who among us hasn’t been flown to a remote part of Alaska, gone fishing with some buddies and then later heard their cases in their court!? I call that a Tuesday where I’m from. Where I’m from is a small town called Corruptionville, though, and there’s a reason I got out of there as fast as I could.
You might recognize Singer’s name, and that’s because he’s given a lot of money to, and is the chairman of, an organization acting as one of the plaintiffs in the case against Biden’s student loan relief. So, you know, a terrible person with awful views.
So where Alito really excels in his corruption is that, as far as we know, he’s apparently the only Supreme Court Justice in history that has had a personal relationship with someone and then heard their cases in the highest court in the land. Per the above source:
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.
OK. Take a deep breath; this is bad, obviously. But if you are concerned about one man’s access to a Supreme Court Judge, don’t worry. It’s also an entire (dweeby) conservative group, too! Per ProPublica:
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.
I know we regular people are mad right now because this is boldfaced corruption with no consequences, but imagine how angry Clarence Thomas is at the moment. This report shows him he was scamming in the bush league getting little treats from his sugar daddy when Alito was on a whole other level.
Before you completely lose your mind over this, I need you to understand that Alito has a very simple reason why he went on this trip, which he explained in his Op-Ed published in Wall Street Journal, which by the by, was published after he was given a list of “detailed questions” by ProPublica, which he refused to answer. Per the above source:
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.”
The horror! An empty seat on a plane?! What’s a little light corruption in the face of a crime against humanity like that?!
So what can we as a country do when you have at least two sitting Supreme Court Justices on the bench, and each of them has a sugar daddy who give them little treats and take them on expensive trips that they never disclose? Well, if you’re the Chief Justice, your answer is basically nothing, and don’t you dare try to tell him what to do, either, Congress! Per ProPublica:
Though the court recently laid out its ethics practices in a statement signed by all nine justices, Chief Justice John Roberts has not directly addressed the recent revelations. In fact, he has repeatedly suggested Congress might not have the power to regulate the court at all.
Alito believes, however, this little jaunt to Alaska was entirely above board and didn’t need to be reported because he was being hosted by a friend. Ah, OK, got it. Nothing to see here, folks! In fact there’s so nothing to see that rather than respond to ProPublica’s requests for comment ahead of publishing their story, Alito went and wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, preemptively rebutting accusations of corruption (and doing a terrible job of it, by the way).
As ProPublica writes:
In his op-ed, Alito said that justices “commonly interpreted” the law’s exception for hospitality “to mean that accommodations and transportation for social events were not reportable gifts.”
His op-ed pointed to language in the judiciary’s filing instructions and cited definitions from Black’s Law Dictionary and Webster’s. But he did not make reference to the judiciary’s regulations or the law itself, which experts said both clearly required disclosure for gifts of travel. ProPublica found at least six examples of other federal judges disclosing gifts of private jet travel in recent years.
This man is lying to our faces and thinks we’re too dumb to understand what he’s doing. Honestly, just once I’d like these grifters just to be honest and tell us “I did it because I could, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
So, in case you care why Alito didn’t recuse himself from his fishing buddy’s cases, here’s his completely logical reasoning if you think like a corrupt person. Per ProPublica:
In his Wall Street Journal op-ed, Alito wrote of his failure to recuse himself from Singer’s cases at the court: “It was and is my judgment that these facts would not cause a reasonable and unbiased person to doubt my ability to decide the matters in question impartially.”
Call me kooky but I feel like the reason Alito is in this controversy to begin with is his judgment!?
Alito’s buddy Singer has frequently asked the Supreme Court to hear his cases, but it takes four justices to agree to hear a case, and that vote is not normally released to the public. Per ProPublica, the case that was heard was decided 7 to 1 in Singer’s favor, which ultimately netted him a “$2.4 billion payout.” Pays to have friends in high places, huh?
The whole thing is gross. It’s gross that both Thomas and Alito (and almost certainly more justices) can basically do whatever they want and there are no repercussions. It’s gross that Chief Justice Roberts doesn’t want to do anything to hold these men accountable, and it’s gross that Thomas and Alito are sitting on the bench making decisions that affect us all. (Alito, remember, is the one who wrote the opinion in Dobbs, the case that overturned Roe v. Wade.)
This probably won’t be the straw that breaks the camel’s back here, but let’s all keep hoping that someday, something will happen that will finally push for real accountability and change. Maybe one of the female Justices will wear the wrong shade of black for their robe, and the world will be outraged enough to push reforms through because we all know if a liberal-leaning justice pulled 10 percent of what the conservatives have done, the other side would be screaming for blood.
(featured image: Erin Schaff-Pool/Getty Images)
