In a #new, secret recording, the #SupremeCourt justice suggests partisan funding is to blame for coverage of justices’ undisclosed luxury #gifts
In a new recording, #SCOTUS Justice Samuel #Alito lashes out at the news organization #ProPublica, describing the news organization’s #Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the #SupremeCourt as driven by #political animus, insisting: “They don’t like our decisions.”
"U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (R-CA) on Tuesday offered a blistering takedown of U.S. Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas amid the pair's separate ethics 'breaches'""
@Nonilex Law breakers don’t want to be outed to the public and lash back. Justices being held to the same standards as the rest of the country are peeved.
#Alito was captured on tape at a June 3 event hosted by the Supreme Court Historical Society. The recording was…by #LaurenWindsor, the liberal documentary maker…. Windsor’s colleague, Ally Sammarco, attended as well, & spoke w/Alito….
The questioner approached Alito w/flattery, calling him an “American hero,” & engaged the justice in a discussion of #media scrutiny of #SCOTUS: “Why do you think the Supreme Court is being so attacked & being so targeted by the media these days?”
#Alito answered: “They don’t like our decisions, & they don’t like how they anticipate we may decide some cases that are coming up. That’s the beginning of the end of it.” But Alito didn’t stop there. He volunteered: “There are groups that are very well-funded by ideological groups that have spearheaded these attacks. That’s what it is.”
Asked to elaborate, Alito got specific. “#ProPublica,” he said. “ProPublica gets a lot of money, & they have spent a fortune investigating #ClarenceThomas….
“You know, everything he’s ever done in his entire life.” #Alito then pulled his own experience into the conversation. “And they’ve done some of that to me, too,” he said. “They look for any little thing they can find, & they try to make something out of it.”
The #SupremeCourt’s 9 unelected jurists are entrusted w/ vast powers to shape individual & collective rights in America. In 2024, #ProPublica won a #Pulitzer Prize for its
“groundbreaking & ambitious reporting” on the high court & “how a small group of politically influential #billionaires wooed justices w/lavish gifts & travel.”
In essence, #Alito is now accusing #ProPublica of being unduly influenced by the #media org’s own financial patrons. A spox for ProPublica defended its investigative #journalism to RollingStone. “ProPublica exposes abuses of #power no matter which party is in charge ‘ our newsroom operates w/fierce #independence … No donors are made aware of stories before they are published, nor do they have a say as to which stories reporters pursue.”
#Propublica claims >55k donors of “every stripe” & also posts a list of its “larger donors,” which includes many mainstream foundations.
…Though #Alito dismissed the outlet’s reporting as focused on “little” things, ProPublica’s stories prompted the court to issue a new code of conduct, signed by all 9 justices, in Nov 2023. A statement by the court said the document “largely represents a codification of principles that we have long regarded as governing our conduct.”
She tells Rolling Stone that #Alito’s comments about #ProPublica are “really indicative of the sort of #grievance that he carries — or this sort of thumbing his nose at ethical standards he thinks he should not be subjected to.”
She adds, “I don’t think anybody in their right mind would consider a free RV, your nephew’s tuition, or buying your mother’s house a ‘little thing.’ These are all purchases from a donor — gifts from a donor — that I think any reasonable person would consider to be extraordinary.”
@Nonilex
Living full time in an RV, if someone offered me a new one, it would be a free home, for me.
Hardly a "little thing".
Plus I bet that free RV wasn't a class C, I imagine it's a top of the line Prevost class A or something equally ridiculously luxurious.
"Little thing", my ass.
@Nonilex the worst aspect of all this? It takes a journalist undercover to expose corrupt justices. Meaning there is ABSOLUTELY no ethical oversight or standards in place. The clear message sent them, do as you please and they do.
@Nonilex I'm one of those donors to ProPublica. I assert here without fear of contradiction that I've never once tried to influence their coverage. (I'm a tiny donor, if that wasn't obvious.)
@Nonilex We elect the Legislative and Executive branches of the federal government. I see no reason why we shouldn't also have and elected judiciary, including the Supreme Court.
@Nonilex
Alito is a nazi cunt whose opinions come out of his wife's asshole. He is worthless. He has zero credibility, he's just trying to distract the people from everything we've just learned about him. He makes rutting apes look like models of civility and couth. I'll take Propublica's word before anything this verbally diarrheic fascist vomits out.
@Nonilex please don’t use the expression “unelected” when talking about judges. Politics and the law should be entirely separate; in most countries the judiciary is not appointed by politicians or by election, but by the judiciary themselves.
@Nonilex I'm pretty sure that #ProPublica doesn't like #SCOTUS corruption...in addition to the current court's dismantling of rights upheld for decades in the past.