Supreme Court Justice Samuel A Alito Jr took a private jet costing $100,000 one-way to a luxury fishing vacation with hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer in 2008 (Photographer: Steve Petteway)|Public Domain
Just hours before ProPublica released its investigative report detailing Supreme Court Justice Samuel A Alito Jr’s luxury vacation with GOP megadonor and billionaire Paul Singer, he wrote a piece defending it.
In the Wall Street Journal opinion, Justice Alito says he is not required to disclose the trip, which ProPublica found was not mentioned in his annual financial disclosure.
The trip and aftermath
Justice Alito took a private jet costing $100,000 one-way to a luxury fishing vacation with hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer in 2008.
A few years later Singer’s business went before the court at least 10 times, including one 2014 case in which Justice Alito sided with the majority decision favoring the businessman.
Justice Alito wrote in the WSJ, “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.”
Not new
In April, ProPublica published a report revealing that for 20+ years, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas accepted several luxury trips funded by billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow.
Justice Thomas too omitted to disclose the trips while filing his annual financial disclosures to the judiciary.