Justice Samuel Alito attempted to refute a report accusing him of serious ethics violations by releasing an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal and noted in the title “ProPublica Misleads Its Readers.”
ProPublica released a report accusing Justice Samuel Alito of ethics violations regarding his financial disclosures in 2008.
Alito noted he was recently contacted by ProPublica about a fishing trip he took to Alaska with a GOP mega-donor. In order to get ahead of the coming report, he wrote his own op-ed detailing how and why this event took place.
He wrote, “The flight to Alaska was the only occasion when I have accepted transportation for a purely social event, and in doing so, I followed what I understood to be standard practice. For these reasons, I did not include on my Financial Disclosure Report for 2008 either the accommodations provided by the owner of the King Salmon Lodge, who, to my knowledge, has never been involved in any matter before the Court, or the seat on the flight to Alaska.”
According to ProPublica, Alito was given a flight on a private jet that would have cost $100,000 if he chartered it himself and lodged at a luxury fishing spot which cost over a $1,000 a day. This was funded by businessman Paul Singer who would go on to engage in multiple “high-stakes business disputes” before the Supreme Court.
The organization questioned Justice Alito’s judgment regarding the luxury vacation and went on to note their earlier reporting implicating Justice Clarence Thomas in similar ethics violations involving a different Republican megadonor.
ProPublica’s motives are now being questioned due to the fact they came under fire earlier this month for accepting funding from “secret donors” whose political affiliations are unknown.
On June 9, the New York Post questioned ProPublica’s motives. They noted it was founded by Paul Steiger, former editor of the Wall Street Journal and Steiger “has a left-wing bias and is funded mainly by left-wing fat cat donors including George Soros — some of whom are not named by the news site.”
Alito called out the ProPublica report for scrutinizing an event which took place 15 years ago.
He wrote in the op-ed, “It would be utterly impossible for my staff or any other Supreme Court employees to search filings with the SEC or other government bodies to find the names of all individuals with a financial interest in every such entity named as a party in the thousands of cases that are brought to us each year.”
