Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito reportedly took an undisclosed luxury vacation at an Alaska fishing lodge and flew on a private plane that was paid for by a GOP mega donor who was later had cases before the top court.
Alito did not disclose the 2008 junket, which featured a jaunt to a remote waterfall where bears snatch salmon from a river with their teeth, as required on court disclosure forms. Nor did he recuse himself from cases involving mega donor Paul Singer, Pro Publica reported.
Singer, who has showered cash on Republican candidates and right-wing legal groups, footed the bill for the conservative judge’s flight on his private plane. The trip would have cost $100,000 if the justice had chartered the plane himself.
“If you were good friends, what were you doing ruling on his case?” Charles Geyh, an Indiana University law professor told the non-profit news site. “And if you weren’t good friends, what were you doing accepting this?”
King Salmon Lodge owner Robin Arkley II, a mortgage firm billionaire and conservative donor, paid for Alito‘s stay at the luxe lodge.
Pro Publica said guests were flown to fish the Nushagak River, home to one of the best salmon runs in the world. A grinning Alito showed off his giant catch in a snapshot of the excursion.
Alito dug into dinners of king crab, salmon and Kobe steaks and sipped on $1,000 bottles of wine, according to the report.
The case is similar to the alleged brazen corruption of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who failed to disclose years of extravagant vacations paid for by GOP mega donor Harlan Crow along with Crow’s purchase of a Georgia home where the judge’s elderly mother lives.
Alito, who penned the Supreme Court’s controversial decision last year overturning Roe v. Wade, declined to comment for the article. He instead authored an unusual prebuttal in the Wall Street Journal in which he claimed Singer was a casual acquaintance and that he only rode on the private jet because he had been told the seat would otherwise have gone empty.
The lodge was only a “comfortable but rustic facility,” and said any wine he got “certainly did not cost $1,000.”
The conservative judge claimed he didn’t know about Singer’s involvement in numerous cases including a dispute between his hedge fund and Argentina.
Alito joined a 7-1 majority ruling in Singer’s favor in that case, a decision that led to a reported $2.4 billion windfall for Singer’s firm.
All government officials including Supreme Court judges are supposed to disclose most gifts, only excluding personal hospitality from close friends.
Ethics experts say Alito clearly should have disclosed the trip, particularly Singer’s role in flying him in his private jet. They say he had an obligation to recuse himself from cases involving Singer.
Democrats are calling for binding ethics rules on Supreme Court justices, but Chief Justice John Roberts has pushed back on the idea.