Samuel Alito has never taken the tradition of upholding a pretense of impartiality for the people who wear the robe seriously. From mouthing “not true” when Obama correctly pointed out how damaging the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling would be to the political landscape to an accusation that he leaked a ruling, Alito has always exhibited a freedom from accountability, so much so many consider the Court’s current iteration the “Alito Court.” (Sorry, John Roberts.)
Alito’s on the attack again, this time against ProPublica for an as-yet-unpublished report presumably involving Alito, a private jet trip to Alaska, billionaire right-wing political activist Paul Singer, and questions about two ethics issues: if Alito reported the gifts and if he should have recused himself in cases involving Singer’s interests. How do we know about these topics if the story is now unpublished? Well, because the kind people at Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal gave the Supreme Court Justice free ink to publish his response to the charges Alito expects. As a reputable journalistic outlet, reporters at ProPublica asked Alito for his comments on a number of issues, allowing Alito to suss out the topics and undertake his pre-emptive attack.
The piece comes across as something one would see deep in the comment section of a Federalist Society blog, a mix of trollish smarm and political self-righteousness with a dash of the victimization so common among Republican white men holding high offices of state. Curiously, Alito’s relationship with Singer starts the same way his colleague (in court and corruption) Clarence Thomas met his sugar daddy, Harlan Crow: Singer happened to have an empty seat on his personal jet, which just so happened to be headed to the destination the Justice was headed. And as Alito explains, it was a great benefit to taxpayers because… security on the Marshall Islands?
As for the flight, Mr. Singer and others had already made arrangements to fly to Alaska when I was invited shortly before the event, and I was asked whether I would like to fly there in a seat that, as far as I am aware, would have otherwise been vacant. It was my understanding that this would not impose any extra cost on Mr. Singer. Had I taken commercial flights, that would have imposed a substantial cost and inconvenience on the deputy U.S. Marshals who would have been required for security reasons to assist me.