Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. took issue with questions raised by the investigative journalism outlet ProPublica about his travel with a politically active billionaire, and on Tuesday evening, he outlined his defense in an op-ed published by the Wall Street Journal.
Yet Alito was responding to a news story that ProPublica hadn’t yet published.
Alito’s Journal column, bluntly headlined “ProPublica Misleads Its Readers,” was an unusual public venture by a Supreme Court justice into the highly opinionated realm of a newspaper editorial page. And it drew criticism late Tuesday for effectively leaking elements of ProPublica’s still-in-progress journalism — with the assistance of the Journal’s editorial-page editors.
An editor’s note at the top of Alito’s column said that ProPublica reporters Justin Elliott and Josh Kaplan had sent a series of questions to Alito last week and asked for a response by Tuesday at noon. The editor’s note doesn’t mention that ProPublica hadn’t yet published its story — nor that Alito did not provide his answers directly to ProPublica.
ProPublica published its story on Alito just before midnight on Tuesday, about five hours after the Journal published Alito’s defensive column.
It details the conservative justice’s relationship with billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer, including their trip to an Alaskan fishing resort in 2008. According to the story, Singer — whose hedge fund subsequently came before the court 10 times in various business disputes — flew Alito to the resort on his private jet, a trip ProPublica reported would have cost Alito more than $100,000 one way if he had chartered the jet on his own.
Alito, who wrote the court’s landmark Dobbs decision striking down federal abortion rights last year, didn’t list the trip on his financial disclosure forms in an apparent violation of the law, according to ProPublica.
The new report adds to the growing list of ethics questions surrounding the court, which have become a key focus of congressional Democrats. Earlier this year, reporting by ProPublica about a relationship between Justice Clarence Thomas and a frequent Republican donor led to calls for greater transparency about the financial disclosure process for the Supreme Court.
The publication said Singer flew Alito to Alaska on a private jet and that the justice did not report the fishing trip or the private jet flight on his annual financial disclosure or recuse himself from cases involving Singer’s hedge fund that came before the court. In the years following the 2008 trip, the billionaire’s hedge fund “came before the court at least 10 times in cases where his role was often covered by the legal press and mainstream media,” ProPublica reported.
“In 2014, the court agreed to resolve a key issue in a decade-long battle between Singer’s hedge fund and the nation of Argentina. Alito did not recuse himself from the case and voted with the 7-1 majority in Singer’s favor. The hedge fund was ultimately paid $2.4 billion,” according to ProPublica.
The phrase “consciousness of guilt” is not a Lieu coinage, but instead is a legal term with a specific legal definition.
Consciousness of Guilt: “Evidence of post-crime conduct that may in the context of a particular case evince a defendant's consciousness of guilt of the offense with which the defendant is charged is admissible. A consciousness of guilt may, for example, be evinced by a false alibi or explanation for one's actions, intimidation of a witness, destruction or concealment of evidence or flight.”
Then ProPublica’s report came out. It details the trip, organized not by Singer but by Leonard Leo, the conservative activist who in recent years has emerged as a central driver of the right’s accumulation of judicial power. Leo asked Singer to accommodate Alito, and the billionaire obliged. Alito didn’t report the trip (his lawyer, Samuel Alito, arguing in the Wall Street Journal that it wasn’t necessary) and didn’t recuse himself from a case involving Singer in 2014.
Alito argued in the Wall Street Journal that Singer’s name wasn’t associated with the defendant firm in documents filed as part of Republic of Argentina v. NML Capital. However, he should have realized the connection given that contemporaneous news articles about the case mentioned Singer’s role. That includes articles in the Wall Street Journal.
Various ethics experts who spoke with ProPublica argue that the trip should have been reported and that Alito should have recused himself from matters involving Singer. Alito and Leo, predictably, disagree.
But this debate over ethical edicts and rulemaking — however likely to favor ProPublica’s interpretation — is beside the point. The point, instead, is that luxury recreational trips paid for by wealthy benefactors is inherently in conflict with the role of serving on the Supreme Court.
No one is suggesting that Supreme Court justices should live the lives of ascetics. Nor should they not have social lives, though it’s easy to see how this quickly moves into a gray area. Alito notes in the Journal that Singer had more than once introduced him as a speaker at an event — an opportunity for Singer to praise Alito and his work before a large audience. While such occurrences are unremarkable, it’s worth considering them in light of Alito’s role: He’s one of nine people who ultimately decide how laws should be interpreted. Does such an introduction risk influencing Alito? Or, more likely, does it risk creating the public perception that he might be influenced?
"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
AMY GOODMAN: Two years later, in 2019, I spoke to Daniel Ellsberg a day after the Justice Department charged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act for publishing U.S. military and diplomatic documents exposing U.S. war crimes. Assange, who’s locked up in the Belmarsh prison in London, faces up to 175 years in prison if extradited to the U.S. and convicted here.
DANIEL ELLSBERG: Yesterday is a day that will be — live in the history of journalism, of law in this country and of civil liberties in this country, because it was a direct attack on the First Amendment, an unprecedented one. There hasn’t actually been such a significant attack on the freedom of the press, the First Amendment, which is the bedrock of our republic, really, our form of government, since my case in 1971, 48 years ago. But this is — I was indicted as a source. And I warned newsmen then that that would not be the last indictment of a source, if I were convicted. Well, I wasn’t convicted. The charges were dropped on governmental misconduct. And it was another 10 years before anybody else faced that charge under the Espionage Act again, Samuel Loring Morison. And it was not until President Obama that nine cases were brought, as I had been warning for so long.
But my warning really was that it wasn’t going to stop there, that almost inevitably there would be a stronger attack directly on the foundations of journalism, against editors, publishers and journalists themselves. And we’ve now seen that as of yesterday. That’s a new front in President Trump’s war on the free press, which he regards as the enemy of the people.
AMY GOODMAN: And the Trump administration saying Julian Assange is not a publisher, is not a journalist, that’s why he is not protected by the First Amendment?
DANIEL ELLSBERG: In the face of this new indictment, which — and let me correct something that’s been said just a little wrong by everybody so far. He doesn’t just face 170 years. That’s for the 17 counts on the Espionage Act, each worth 10. Plus, he’s still facing the five-year conspiracy charge that he started out with a few weeks ago. I was sure that the administration did not want to keep Julian Assange in jail just for five years. So I’ve been expecting these Espionage Act charges. I really expected them later, after he was extradited, because adding them now makes it a little more complicated for Britain to extradite him now, as I understand it. They’re not supposed to extradite for political offenses or for political motives, and this is obviously for both political motives and political offenses. So, from Julian Assange’s point of view, it makes extradition a little more difficult.
Why then did they bring it right now? Well, coming back to the case, by the way, that I faced, I faced only 11 [Espionage] Act charges, each worth 10 years in prison, plus a conspiracy charge worth five. So I was facing exactly 115 years in prison. He’s facing exactly 175. Now, that’s not a difference that makes any difference. In both cases, it’s a question of a life sentence.
I think that the reason they brought these charges so soon, because they had until June 12th, was to lay out — the necessity to lay out for extradition all the charges they plan to bring. And I don’t assume these are the last ones. They’ve got a couple weeks left to string up some new charges.
They started out with a charge that made Julian look something other than a normal journalist. The help to hacking a password sounded like something that, even in the Digital Age, perhaps most journalists wouldn’t do, and that would hope to separate him from the support of other journalists.
In this case, when they had to lay out their larger charge, this is straight journalism. They mention, for instance, that he solicited investigative material, he solicited classified information — terribly, he didn’t just passively receive it over the transom. I can’t count the number of times I have been solicited for classified information, starting with the Pentagon Papers, but long after that, and that’s by every member of the responsible press that I dealt with — the Times, the Post, AP, you name it. That’s journalism. So, what they have done is recognizable, I think, this time to all journalists, that they are in the crosshairs of this one. They may not have known enough about digital performance to help a source conceal her identity by using new passwords, as Julian was charged with. They may not be able to do that. But every one of them has eagerly received classified information and solicited it.
AMY GOODMAN: We end our show with Daniel Ellsberg in his own words, May 18th, 2018, when I spoke to him at a Right Livelihood laureate gathering at University of California, Santa Cruz. I asked him what message he had for government insiders who are considering becoming whistleblowers.
DANIEL ELLSBERG: My message to them is: Don’t do what I did. Don’t wait 'til the bombs are actually falling or thousands more have died, before you do what I wish I had done years earlier, in ’64 or even ’61, on the nuclear issue. And that is, reveal the truth that you know, the dangerous truths that are being withheld by the government, at whatever cost to yourself, whatever risk that may take. Consider doing that, because a war's worth of lives may be at stake. Or in the case of the two existential crises I’m talking about, the future of humanity is at stake.
So many graduating classes, I think, have been taught — have been told, year after year for half a century, that they face a crossroads or that much depends on what they do. That’s no exaggeration right now. It’s this generation, not the next one, the people living right now, that have to change these problems fast. And I think truth-telling is crucial to mobilize that.
AMY GOODMAN: Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg died Friday at the age of 92, just months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Our deepest condolences to his family, his wife Patricia, his children Robert, Mary and Michael, his grandchildren and his great-granddaughter. That does it for our show. I’m Amy Goodman. Thank you for joining us.
But most of those today loudly hailing Ellsberg as an "American hero" have been far more reluctant to champion the Ellsberg of our times: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
For years, Assange has been rotting in a London high-security prison while the Biden administration seeks his extradition on charges that ludicrously equate his publication of the Afghan and Iraq war logs - a modern Pentagon Papers - with “espionage”.
Like Ellsberg, Assange exposed the way western states had been systematically lying while they perpetrated war crimes. Like Ellsberg, he was fraudulently labelled a threat to national security and charged with espionage. Like Ellsberg, if found guilty, he faces more than 100 years in jail. Like Ellsberg, Assange has learned that the US Congress is unwilling to exercise its powers to curb governmental abuses.
But unlike Ellsberg’s case, the courts have consistently sided with Assange’s persecutors, not with him for shining a light on state criminality. And, in a further contrast, the western media have stayed largely silent as the noose has tightened around Assange’s neck.
The similarities in Assange's and Ellsberg’s deeds - and the stark differences in outcomes - are hard to ignore. The very journalists and publications now extolling Ellsberg for his historic act of bravery have been enabling, if only through years of muteness, western capitals’ moves to demonise Assange for his contemporary act of heroism.
Marianne Williamson has lost her second campaign manager in as many months in what has proven to be a rocky 2024 presidential bid.
Roza Calderon’s departure was announced Monday on a small left-wing podcast, the Vanguard, and independently confirmed by two sources to POLITICO granted anonymity to discuss internal staffing dynamics. It is unclear whether she was fired, quit or if it was a mutually agreed upon departure.
Calderon was first hired as a fundraiser for the Williamson campaign in late April and then took on the top job in May after then-interim campaign manager Peter Daou stepped down along with deputy campaign manager Jason Call.
Calderon’s experience in such roles was limited. She ran for Congress in 2018 but lost. During that campaign, she was sentenced to probation after allegedly stealing money from a local Democratic Party group to spend on gas, movie downloads and BottleRock music festival tickets. She had also embellished her resume calling herself a director of development when she was in fact a contractor at the progressive nonprofit Our Revolution.
Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie dunked on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis this week over his bitter crusade against Walt Disney World as an example of the party wasting its time on "small" political issues.
Republicans, he said, should instead be "arguing about and being daring" on policies involving China, economic security, reducing the import of petroleum, and expanding charter schools.
"What we are wasting our time on is talking about, 'Is it OK for Disney to oppose a bill in Florida and should they be penalized for it? And does that prove you're really a tough guy or does it just prove that you're not conservative in terms of the way you think government should operate?" the former New Jersey governor told the "Ruthless" podcast in an interview that aired Monday, without using DeSantis' name.
Large majorities of U.S. adults across different racial, ethnic, and religious identities oppose religious-based discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, according to a new Williams Institute report.
Even majorities of Republicans oppose religious-based anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination, the report found. Its findings suggest that Republican-led attacks on LGBTQ+ civil rights — many of which are couched in religious terms — are actually opposed by most American adults.
Approximately 84% of survey respondents said they opposed religious-based denials of healthcare to LGBTQ+ people, 74% opposed religious-based anti-LGBTQ+ employment discrimination, and 71% opposed business employees denying services to LGBTQ+ people based on the employees or employer’s religious beliefs.
Over 80% of respondents in all non-white racial and ethnic groups opposed the use of religious beliefs to deny LGBTQ+ people business services, medical care, and employment. About 70% of white respondents felt the same. Female, younger, or college-educated respondents were also more likely to oppose religious-based anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination than respondents who are men, older in age, or non-college educated.
A consultative process among Catholics around the world has led the church to take steps to include women in decision-making positions, accept “radical inclusion” of the LGBTQ+ community and change the authority of bishops Are. ,
The Vatican on Tuesday released a summary of the consultation process, a project that has lasted two years and will form the basis of discussions for a synod between bishops and laity in October. The event, one of Pope Francis’ priorities, reflects his vision of a Church oriented more toward the flock and not so much toward the clergy.
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), the first female combat veteran elected to the U.S. Senate, is leading a bipartisan charge to amend military records of female veterans who deployed alongside Special Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq to ensure they accurately reflect their work as members of Cultural Support Teams (CST). These female veterans shared similar operational experiences as their male peers but have not been recognized for their combat service, denying them rank, benefits, and critical healthcare services.
“Make no mistake – women have been wearing our nation’s uniform and serving honorably in war zones long before our military removed the ban on women serving in combat,” said Senator Joni Ernst. “As the first female combat veteran to serve in the U.S. Senate, I’m proud to fight for the hundreds of women who played critical roles in Afghanistan and Iraq and ensure they receive the care and recognition they have always deserved.”
Background:
Before female servicemembers were able to formally serve in combat roles, CSTs were deployed to combat zones with Special Operations Forces (SOF) in order to engage with female populations, greatly expanding operational and intelligence capabilities.
This bipartisan effort would require the review of the military records of CST women veterans who served from 2010 to 2021 in support of Special Operations Forces. The bill is named the Jax Act after Jaclyn “Jax” Scott, who served on a Cultural Support Team and has been leading the fight to get female combat veterans the recognition and benefits they earned.
Senators Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), and Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) are leading the Jax Act alongside Senator Ernst.
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