The US supreme court justice Samuel Alito accepted a seat on a private plane owned by the conservative billionaire Paul Singer, flying to Alaska for a luxury fishing trip hosted by another rightwing businessman, then did not declare such gifts or recuse himself when Singer had business before the court.
The latest blockbuster report on the tangled subject of supreme court ethics came, again, from ProPublica. The non-profit newsroom has already detailed the close relationship between another hardline justice, Clarence Thomas, and the conservative billionaire Harlan Crow.
Supreme court justices are subject to the same ethics rules as other federal judges but effectively govern themselves. The chief justice, John Roberts, has resisted calls to testify in Congress about the Thomas-Crow affair.
On Wednesday, Dick Durbin, the chair of the Senate judiciary committee, and his fellow Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse said that when Congress returns from the 4 July recess, their committee will “mark up supreme court ethics legislation”.
The senators said: “We hope that before that time, Chief Justice Roberts will take the lead and bring supreme court ethics in line with all other federal judges.
“But if the court won’t act, then Congress must.”
On Tuesday, Alito published a controversial “prebuttal” to the new ProPublica report, using a Wall Street Journal column to say the piece was coming and to deny wrongdoing.
Alito said justices “commonly interpreted” ethics laws “to mean that accommodations and transportation for social events were not reportable gifts”.
The seat on Singer’s plane, the justice wrote, “would have otherwise been vacant”.
Virginia Canter, a former government ethics lawyer now with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said a private plane trip was not an acceptable gift.
“The exception only covers food, lodging and entertainment,” Canter told ProPublica. “He’s trying to move away from the plain language of the statute and the regulation.”
Alito said the fishing lodge in Alaska was “comfortable but rustic”, serving “homestyle fare”.
ProPublica said “chefs served multi-course meals of Alaskan king crab legs or Kobe filet [steak]. On the last evening, a member of Alito’s group bragged that the wine they were drinking cost $1,000 a bottle,” according to a fishing guide.
Alito said: “I cannot recall whether the group at the lodge … was served wine, but if there was wine it was certainly not wine that costs $1,000.”
ProPublica detailed how Singer took Alito to Alaska in summer 2008, while engaged in a high-stakes case between his hedge fund and the government of Argentina. The case eventually reached the supreme court, Alito joining a 7-1 decision against Argentina.
Singer denied wrongdoing or discussing business with Alito. Alito said he had never been aware of connections between Singer’s businesses and cases before him.
Abbe Smith, a Georgetown law professor, told ProPublica Alito should have recused himself because of the gift from Singer.
If she were representing a client in such a case and “found out [about the gift] after the fact”, Smith said, “I’d be outraged on behalf of my client. And, frankly, I’d be outraged on behalf of the legal system.”
The rightwing activist Leonard Leo, who has done much to shape conservative dominance of federal courts including the supreme court, and who recently received $1.6bn to further his work, accompanied Alito and Singer to Alaska.
Leo told ProPublica: “No objective and well-informed observer of the judiciary honestly could believe that they decide cases in order to cull favour with friends, or in return for a free plane seat or fishing trip.”
Kyle Herrig, president of the watchdog Accountable.US, said: “As the supreme court corruption crisis grows with yet another apparent violation of the court’s bare minimum ethics code, it’s no surprise that Leonard Leo is right in the middle. He’s the corrupting influence responsible for the rot.
“As long as Chief Justice Roberts continues to dodge responsibility … public trust in our court will continue to plummet. We need reform now.”
Whitehouse, who has sought to highlight donors’ influence on the court, responded to Alito’s Wall Street Journal column with incredulity – and questions.
“First,” the senator wrote, “who orchestrated this weird prebuttal … and did Alito get help from a PR firm? If so, who paid?
“Second, why dwell on the term ‘facility’ [as Alito called Singer’s plane] but not mention that the ‘personal hospitality’ reporting exemption is specifically limited to ‘food, lodging and entertainment’? Failing to mention that other part of the rule wouldn’t fly in most courts.
“Third, why not ask the financial disclosure committee of the Judicial Conference, the body set up exactly for that purpose, for its advice on what should be disclosed? That’s why it’s there.
“And what, he just happened to be flying to Alaska and there just happened to be a private jet going to Alaska with an empty seat, and he just happened to find that out, like on some weird billionaire shared-ride Uber?
“Oh, and would that ‘empty seat’ trick fly with legislative or executive ethics disclosures? (Hint: no.) And how about with the financial disclosure committee? (Right, you didn’t ask.)
“This just keeps getting worse.”
ProPublica also reported an earlier Alaska trip taken by another rightwing justice, Antonin Scalia, with Robin Arkley II, the businessman who then owned the fishing lodge and who ProPublica said “does not appear to have been involved in any cases before the court”.
On a visit to the Hubbard Glacier, on a boat called the Happy Hooker IV, Scalia, who died in 2016, reportedly “mixed martinis from Grey Goose vodka and glacier ice”.
