'This just keeps getting worse': Sheldon Whitehouse rips apart Alito’s defense of gifts from GOP billionaire

21 June 2023

ProPublica has done some bombshell reporting on the U.S. Supreme Court in 2023 — especially on Justice Clarence Thomas. But the publication has been keeping a close eye on Justice Samuel Alito as well. On Tuesday, June 20, the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by Alito in which the far-right justice took exception to ProPublica's reporting on him — and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) responded with a biting Twitter thread.

In his op-ed, Alito defended a fishing trip with GOP billionaire Paul Singer — who later had some cases before the High Court.

The George W. Bush-appointed justice wrote, "ProPublica has leveled two charges against me: first, that I should have recused in matters in which an entity connected with Paul Singer was a party and, second, that I was obligated to list certain items as gifts on my 2008 Financial Disclose Report. Neither charge is valid…. I had no obligation to recuse in any of the cases that ProPublica cites."

But Whitehouse vehemently disagrees.

In his June 20 Twitter thread, the Rhode Island senator wrote, "Oh, my, the questions: First, who orchestrated this weird pre-buttal with the infamous WSJ Polluter Page, and did Alito get help from a PR firm? If so, who paid?"

Alito, in his WSJ op-ed, stressed that during the fishing trip with Singer, he "stayed for three nights in a modest one-room unit at the King Salmon Lodge, which was a comfortable but rustic facility."

Whitehouse tweeted, "Second, why dwell on the term 'facility' but not mention that the 'personal hospitality' reporting exemption is specifically limited only to 'food, lodging and entertainment'?.... And who goes on a fishing trip for the accommodations? Don't people go on fishing trips for the fishing? Isn't that the real gift value at issue here?"

The senator continued, "Did Alito really jet to Alaska to spend time in the hotel? Did he fish in the tub? Please…. 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…. This just keeps getting worse.'"

University of Michigan law professor Leah Litman wrote an equally scathing Twitter thread in response to Alito's op-ed, which she slammed as "beyond parody."

Litman posted, "Sam Alito has taken PJ (personal jet) trips. And he's VERY upset that you would think this creates an appearance of impropriety!!!!!!.... Here you have a Supreme Court Justice *admit* that they pay 'little personal attention' to the 'vast majority' of cases that parties ask them to hear. and pout that it would be REALLY HARD for them to try and figure out whether they have an interest in all of these cases."

Slate's Mark Joseph Stern, an attorney, tweeted, "'It's OK that I secretly flew to Alaska on this private jet because it had an empty seat!' is the comically bizarre excuse of a man caught red-handed, and yet it is still more persuasive logic than anything Alito wrote in Dobbs….. Alito writes in the WSJ opinion page that he had “no good reason” to know that this case involved Paul Singer, but virtually every article about it mentioned Singer’s involvement — including the one in the WSJ opinion page."

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