So. Back to Justice Alito. Life tenure and unchecked decisions might lead you to think that Supreme Court justices would not be affected by criticisms. You would be wrong. (See the AJsdad.blog, March 11, 2022, “ACB Told Us So” and the post of March 2, 2022, “Partisan Hacks, Comprised Of”.) Recently Samuel Alito has given us an example of judicial thin skin. A respected news organization uncovered information that Alito had taken an undisclosed expensive vacation paid for by a billionaire who has interests with cases before the Supreme Court. That news organization did the professional thing by asking Alito for comments before publishing the report. Alito blew them off. Instead, before the news report was published, he placed a prebuttal in the Wall Street Journal.
Alito, echoing an earlier defense by Clarence Thomas of similar behavior, said that the trip did not have to be disclosed because it was “personal hospitality.” We can all understand that. I certainly accept personal hospitality, but I wonder about it in Alito’s circumstances. At least in my circumstances, such hospitality is reciprocal. Someone entertains me with dinner or drinks or lodging, and almost always I have reciprocated in some fashion. I wonder: How often has Samuel Alito invited the billionaire over for dinner? Is it “personal” if the hospitality is only in one direction? Alito did not disclose such reciprocity if it has happened.
Alito’s WSJ rebuttal also said that he had merely filled a seat that otherwise would have gone empty on the billionaire’s private jet, implying that somehow plunking his behind there really cost the billionaire nothing. However, I know that seat was not offered to me, and I doubt that it was offered to you. But somehow it was offered to Alito. Hmmmm.
Alito went on to justify his failure to recuse himself from the cases that involved the billionaire’s interests. Alito said the billionaire’s name was not on the court papers and, furthermore, there is no reason ever to conclude that he might be biased. Hey, he barely knows the guy he said. Alito saw no possible contradiction between the trip being “personal hospitality” yet barely knowing the billionaire. Perhaps one might conclude that he was invited on the trip because he was a Supreme Court justice???
Alito’s defense petulantly implied, “How dare you criticize me!” Right wingers, including the Wall Street Journal editorial page, have more explicitly promoted this message. The pundits proclaim that the story about Alito is partisan, published with the express purpose of undermining the legitimacy of the Supreme Court. ProPublica, the organization that performed the Alito investigation, is a nonprofit not aligned with any political party. It is well regarded; it has won a half-dozen Pulitzer Prizes as well as other awards. And, ironically, its founding editor came from the Wall Street Journal.
The critics claiming partisanship have not claimed that ProPublica got the facts wrong. This reminds me of watching Stephen Colbert playing the role of the right-wing bloviator on Comedy Central who said, “I am against the facts because the facts are liberal.”
Moreover, it seems laughable that the conservatives would attack the reporting about Alito as an attack on the legitimacy of the Supreme Court. Those same pundits have regularly attacked Biden, and no doubt before that, Obama and probably Bill Clinton, if they are old enough. By their logic, those criticisms were attacks on the legitimacy of the presidency. I think, however, we can all agree that the presidency has survived. So much so, that a slew of conservatives want to be president. Reporting about Alito will not destroy the legitimacy of the Court. If one of those right wingers becomes president, he or she will have no difficulty in finding people to put on the Supreme Court.
If perception of the Supreme Court’s impartiality is harmed by this contretemps, however, it will not be because of the messenger, the accurate investigative reporting. It will be because of Samuel Alito’s (and Clarence Thomas’s) actions. Apparently he believes that unless there is evidence that he took a quid pro quo, he did nothing wrong. We should trust him and the institution he is part of even if the lavish fishing trip looks fishy. Alito rejects the two-millennia-old, conservative advice contained in Caesar’s-wife admonition. Appearances do not matter to Alito and his defenders.
Alito also seems unaware of basic human nature. Who you hang out with affects your views. If I spend most of my time with Tamil Tigers, you can expect me to have different opinions and ideas than if I am a regular at an Iowa quilting circle. Without being consciously aware of it, we soak up all sorts of things from those we converse, sing, worship, or play with.
Normal people want to be liked by those they spend time with. This highlights a great problem with our nation today. The rich have always had outsized power in our government, but especially since the Supreme Court has lifted and relaxed limits on campaign spending, politicians have needed more and more money. Government officials, as a result, spend more and more time with the ultra-rich, and in the normal course of human events, that, at least subtly, affects how they see the world. And now we find out that justices of the Supreme Court also spend time with that tiniest fraction of the upper one percent. When was the last time you did? There are fewer than a thousand billionaires out of our vast population. You are less likely to encounter a billionaire than a deer on the highway. What are the odds that out of mere happenstance, two billionaires from that tiny population only out of feelings of bonhomie have become friends with two Supreme Court justices?
And while I expect those whom I hang out with affect my views in all sorts of ways, I would think I would be especially attentive to those who had given me gifts valued at more than six figures. (Of course, I do not know that from personal experience. How often have you received a gift of more than $100,000?) I think it would be natural to want that person to like me. Apparently, Alito would like you to believe that his nature is different.
