Alito And Thomas Still In Scalia’s Shadow (When It Comes To Undisclosed Luxury Gifts)

Justice Antonin Scalia died as he lived… taking a luxury vacation amongst wealthy fans.

At least that’s one of the key findings from a new Senate Judiciary Committee report, detailing decades of Supreme Court justices living high on the hog over the course of some 900 pages and putting a lot of the responsibility for the Court’s loose relationship with ethical obligations on Ole Nino himself.

Scalia’s last trip was, apparently, not out of the ordinary for the justice. Kicking back in a luxury ranch owned by a wealthy businessman to hang out with more rich people — “a group of friends sympathetic to the justice’s views,” as his host put it.

Justice Scalia regularly accepted luxury travel and lodging from wealthy benefactors and failed to report the gifts on his financial disclosures, in contravention of federal law. From his confirmation in 1986 until his death in 2016, Justice Scalia took at least 258 subsidized trips, more than any other justice. Despite all of these trips being funded by private donors, many were only partially disclosed, while several dozen others appear to have never been disclosed. For instance, Justice Scalia would often disclose trips to give speeches, but fail to disclose hunting trips. Justice Scalia tragically passed away during one of these undisclosed hunting trips.

All for a hunting excursion run by the Order of St. Hubertus, a hunting club of Eyes Wide Shut extras knighted by the King of Spain — though it seems Scalia at least had the good constitutional sense not to be knighted himself, unlike some justices we could mention.

As an aside, several FedSoc keyboard warriors tried to downplay Alito’s decision to get knighted — despite Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution — by arguing that Alito’s specific knighthood is “just an honorary title.” That’s what knighthoods are! He’s not marching against the Starks under his personal sigil (upside-down flag, naturally). The Brits don’t actually expect Elton John to lead an expeditionary force against the French crown. Knighthoods haven’t been more than an honorary title for centuries.

In the Senate report — which dropped over the weekend before Christmas in a timing decision that could not better encapsulate Dick Durbin’s tenure in charge of that body — the Judiciary Committee concluded that the Supreme Court needs an enforceable ethics code which the Court would refuse to acknowledge and the incoming Congress lacks any interest in pursuing. And while the Republican appointees star in the most egregious examples, the report doesn’t ignore the publishing and teaching issues that justices across the spectrum have had.

This instant investigation grew out of ProPublica’s rockstar work identifying half a million in gifts that Clarence Thomas took from billionaire Harlan Crow and Sam Alito’s private jet trip as a guest of a man with business before the Court. Alito attempted to preemptively downplay this report and claim he barely knew his benefactor — a claim that ran smack dab into Above the Law’s own reporting from 2009. As the Senate dug deeper, they found Thomas took even more undisclosed vacations and had an RV purchased with help (in whole or in part) from a health care executive.

But for all the work Thomas and Alito have done to abuse the public trust and spit on the institution, they still have to take a back seat to the OG. Thomas may have collected more in gifts and have a wife taking money under the table and Alito might be streets ahead of anything Scalia did when he’s engaging in coup curious vexillology, but Scalia deserves top honors for developing the strategy to brazenly invoking the “personal hospitality” exception — designed to prevent judges from having to disclose flopping on their college roommate’s couch — as a catch-all for “hundreds of subsidized trips, including several dozen hunting and fishing trips with prominent Republican donors and politicians” in a bid to prevent the public from learning what goes on up there.

FINDING 3: Justice Scalia misused the “personal hospitality” exemption to the Ethics in Government Act to hide or obscure lavish gifts. The Ethics in Government Act requires federal officials, including Supreme Court justices, to file financial disclosure reports. The law includes certain exemptions for what must be included in these reports, including a limited exemption for personal hospitality that applies only to food, lodging, or entertainment received from an individual. Justice Scalia regularly misused the personal hospitality exemption to improperly characterize travel-related gifts as reimbursements and failed to disclose transportation and trips in part or in whole.

Aside from stretching the “personal hospitality” exception beyond all reasonable limits — and certainly beyond whatever “original public meaning” those words might bear — the idea that a justice is just “hangin’ with the boys” when he jumps on a private jet to stay at a resort with a billionaire is deeply problematic. It’s one thing, to use the above hypothetical, if their college roommate turned out to be a multimillionaire running a hedge fund cross-wise with the SEC, but these benefactors have zilch connection with the justices beyond their jobs.

These mega rich “buddies” wouldn’t give Thomas or Alito the time of day if they were traffic court judges. They only have these friends offering “personal hospitality” by dint of the office and the prospect that the ideological justices might leave if they aren’t treated right. Which, when you think about it, is really sad. Imagine taking the position, as a matter of law, that the wealthy sycophants throwing around pocket change to curry favor are your “close friends.” Seems like a sort of empty life.

But it’s the sort of empty life that’s easier to enjoy from a yacht.

Earlier: Clarence Thomas Has Forgotten More Vacations Than You’ll Ever Know
Sam Alito Laments It’s Getting So You Can’t Take All-Expense Paid Luxury Vacations Funded By Billionaires Anymore
Sam Alito Got Knighted… Just Like The Founding Fathers EXPLICITLY MADE UNCONSTITUTIONAL

Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.