(07-13-2023, 12:30 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: What rankles is the extreme hypocrisy by the left on this issue.  January 6th, rightly condemned as an attack on our democracy.  Questioning the integrity of our presidential election, right condemned ass an attack on our democracy.  Schumer threatening justices by name?  POTUS and numerous Dem members of Congress directly attacking the court's validity in the mainstream press?  Nah, that's no problem.

What the Dems are doing in regard to SCOTUS is as bad, and IMO worse, as either of the other two examples.  At least for the other two you could say they were fringe people, Trump not being your typical politician.  In this case we have career politicians directly attempting to delegitimize one of the three branches of our Federal government.  It's insidious, deliberate and nauseating.

(07-13-2023, 12:39 PM)pally Wrote: They delegitimize themselves when they play fast and loose with the ethics laws.

When you don't know who is actually paying them, it is difficult to trust in their decisions

(07-13-2023, 12:39 PM)pally Wrote: They delegitimize themselves when they play fast and loose with the ethics laws.

When you don't know who is actually paying them, it is difficult to trust in their decisions

(07-13-2023, 12:30 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: What rankles is the extreme hypocrisy by the left on this issue.  January 6th, rightly condemned as an attack on our democracy.  Questioning the integrity of our presidential election, right condemned ass an attack on our democracy.  Schumer threatening justices by name?  POTUS and numerous Dem members of Congress directly attacking the court's validity in the mainstream press?  Nah, that's no problem.

(07-13-2023, 05:39 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: So, I disagree with you on two of these.

First, I disagree that questioning the integrity of our elections is an attack on democracy. To this day I do not have any problems with anyone questioning the integrity of the 2020 or any other election. I just require that there be evidence provided before actions are taken. Questioning is good. Continuing to push conspiracy theories that have been disproven and taking anti-democratic actions based on no evidence are problematic. There is a difference.

I also have no problem with anyone questioning the integrity of any official in the press. If you have receipts, bring them. If there are questions about the integrity of someone, bring it up. Just back up your claims. That is all I want. I understand the concerns about court packing, but right now even talking about court reform gets a hiss from certain segments. The SCOTUS is not beyond reproach, they are a political body whether folks like to pretend otherwise or not.

Quote:Congressional Dems pile on Alito after he says SCOTUS ethics can’t be regulated

Democrats — especially progressives — have increasingly expressed more anger at the high court in recent years.




On Friday, the Wall Street Journal editorial page published an extensive interview with conservative Justice Samuel Alito in which he pushed back against a Democratic-led effort to regulate the Supreme Court’s ethics rules. | Susan Walsh/AP Photo
By ANDREW ZHANG
07/29/2023 12:55 PM EDT

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• [url=https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/29/democrats-alito-scotus-ethics-00108873#]
  

House Democrats are putting Justice Samuel Alito on blast over his comments that Congress does not have the constitutional authority to regulate the Supreme Court.


On Friday, the Wall Street Journal editorial page published an extensive interview with the conservative justice in which he pushed back against a Democratic-led effort to regulate the Supreme Court’s ethics rules.

“No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court—period,” Alito told the Journal. “If we’re viewed as illegitimate, then disregard of our decisions becomes more acceptable and more popular.”


Senate Democrats last week passed a bill in committee that would revamp ethics and transparency standards for the court’s justices. But the bill has little chance of proceeding any further in the Senate.


The move responds to a series of news stories about luxury travel trips the justices have taken over the years, with many of the reports focused on Alito’s actions.


“Congress has the authority to set the Supreme Court’s budget and to infinitely expand the high court. But, according to Justice Alito, 
Congress cannot require SCOTUS to have a code of ethics like the rest of the federal government,” Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, on Saturday. “Does that sound remotely logical?”


“Alito’s next opinion piece in the WSJ is about to be ‘I am a little king, actually. The Constitution doesn’t explicitly say I’m not,’” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) quipped.


The renewed criticism seems unlikely to faze Alito, who told the Journal he has stepped out of the traditional expectation that judges are “mute” in the face of political backlash.


“I marvel at all the nonsense that has been written about me in the last year,” he said. “At a certain point I’ve said to myself, nobody else is going to do this, so I have to defend myself.”


As one of the staunchest conservative jurists on the court, Alito has long drawn the ire of those on the left. Most notably, his authorship of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned abortion rights, has made him a particular lightning rod.





“Justice Alito has no business policing women’s private medical decisions,” Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), wrote on X in response to a post of Alito’s interview.
Several Democrats with legal backgrounds were quick to question Alito’s reasoning that Congress had no ability to regulate the Supreme Court.
“This view is more than controversial; it’s incorrect,” Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) posted on X. “As a government official, I welcome the American people holding me accountable—why doesn’t Justice Alito?”
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who is running against Porter in a contentious primary for the state’s open Senate seat in 2024, chimed in with agreement later on Friday.
“Let’s translate these statements from Justice Alito, real quick: What we do and how we do it, who pays for our trips and our vacations, or a family member’s tuition, is none of your damn business. So buzz off,” Schiff wrote on X. “They need an enforceable code of ethics.”

• FILED UNDER: 
• ETHICS, 
• SENATE DEMOCRATS, 
• SAMUEL ALITO, 
• U.S. SUPREME COURT,
  
  
  

(07-30-2023, 01:28 PM)GMDino Wrote: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/29/democrats-alito-scotus-ethics-00108873

(07-30-2023, 01:49 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Here's a quick question for you.  Is he wrong?  If so, kindly demonstrate how.  Literally no one in your article was able to articulate this.  The closest anyone came is this;


“Congress has the authority to set the Supreme Court’s budget and to infinitely expand the high court. But, according to Justice Alito, Congress cannot require SCOTUS to have a code of ethics like the rest of the federal government,” Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, on Saturday. “Does that sound remotely logical?”


Even here he isn't demonstrating Alito is wrong.  He's making an inference based on other abilities actual described as under the purview of Congress.  To quote some random author, lot's of "sound and fury signifying nothing".

(07-30-2023, 02:00 PM)GMDino Wrote: Are you suggesting that Congress cannot pass a law to cover something that is not in the constitution?

That's an interesting take.

(07-30-2023, 02:12 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Is that what I'm saying?  Again, you appear to have a hard time comprehending the positions of people you disagree with.  I asked is Alito wrong and if he is then please demonstrate how.  No one in your quoted article was apparently able to do so, can you?

As to your question, it doesn't specifically say in the Constitution that Congress can't pass a law that the POTUS has to jump into a live volcano after serving two terms.  So can they pass such a law?

(07-30-2023, 02:31 PM)GMDino Wrote: What you're saying is that he is literally right that there is nothing in the constitution saying they can do that.  Of course I could be wrong...I'm sure you'll tell me and then not explain yourself.

Sure they can.  Do you think they can't pass any law they want? 

Here ya go:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgVKvqTItto

Does that mean it will be upheld?  No.

Your suggested law would actually and probably be pretty popular these days. 

Quote:Kagan enters fray over Congress’ power to police Supreme Court
The liberal justice offers a counterpoint to Justice Samuel Alito in the debate over ethics reforms.




Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan (left) sits onstage for a panel at the 9th Circuit Judicial Conference on Thursday, August 3, 2023, in Portland, Ore., with Misty Perry Isaacson, a bankruptcy lawyer and chair for the 9th Circuit Lawyer Representatives Coordinating Committee. | Claire Rush/AP Photo
By JOSH GERSTEIN
08/03/2023 06:22 PM EDT

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PORTLAND, Ore. — Justice Elena Kagan on Thursday jumped into the heated debate over ethics at the Supreme Court, arguing that Congress has broad powers to regulate the nation’s highest tribunal despite the recent claim from one of her conservative colleagues that such a step would violate the Constitution’s separation of powers.

Kagan’s comments, at a judicial conference in Portland, came just days after the Senate Judiciary Committee responded to recent ethics controversies around justices’ luxury travel by advancing a bill requiring the court to establish an ethics code and setting up a mechanism that would enforce it.

“It just can’t be that the court is the only institution that somehow is not subject to checks and balances from anybody else. We’re not imperial,” Kagan told the audience of judges and lawyers attending the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference. “Can Congress do various things to regulate the Supreme Court? I think the answer is: yes.”



Kagan insisted she was not responding directly to Justice Samuel Alito’s blunt statements in an interview last month that Congress would be violating the Constitution’s separation of powers if lawmakers sought to impose ethics and recusal policies on the high court.
“Congress did not create the Supreme Court,” Alito told The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. “No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period.”

While Alito’s statement sounded unqualified, Kagan said she was unsure precisely what question he was asked. She also suggested his remark could not have been as broad as it seemed because the Constitution specifically provides for Congress to dictate the sorts of cases the Supreme Court can and cannot hear.


“Of course, Congress can regulate various aspects of what the Supreme Court does,” said Kagan, who joined the court in 2010 after being nominated by President Barack Obama. “Congress funds the Supreme Court. Congress historically has made changes to the court’s structure and composition. Congress has made changes to the court’s appellate jurisdiction.”


Kagan quickly added that this did not mean Congress could take steps to dictate the outcome of specific cases.

“Can Congress do anything it wants? Well, no,” she said. “There are limits here, no doubts.”

Kagan also offered what could be viewed as a rebuke of Alito, saying she was reluctant to spell out her views further because the court could someday have a case in which it is asked to assess those limits. She also said she didn’t want to “jawbone it” while Congress is considering legislation, although the bill that cleared committee on a party-line vote last month seems to have no chance of clearing the full Senate or being taken up by the Republican-led House.

However, Kagan also said it would be her preference to see the Supreme Court act to defuse the current controversies by taking its own action to address ethics concerns. And she became the first justice to publicly confirm widely held suspicion that the members of the court don’t see eye to eye on the issue — disagreement that has limited an attempt by Chief Justice John Roberts to act on the subject.
“It’s not a secret for me to say that we have been discussing this issue, and it won’t be a surprise to know that the nine of us have a diversity about this and most things. We’re nine freethinking individuals,” she said.

“Regardless of what Congress does, the court can do stuff, you know?” Kagan said. “We could decide to adopt a code of conduct of our own that either follows or decides in certain instances not to follow the standard codes of conduct … that would remove this question of what Congress can do. … I hope that we will make some progress in this area.”

During her remarks on Thursday in an onstage conversation with a bankruptcy judge and attorney involved in organizing the conference, Kagan took a more conciliatory tone toward her conservative colleagues than she did last year in a flurry of public appearances that seemed to evince serious frustration with her role on the court. Those remarks followed the bitter disagreement over the court’s decision last June, by a 5-4 vote, to overturn the federal constitutional right to abortion that had been recognized for nearly half a century.

In her first public comments since the court wrapped up its work this term just over a month ago, Kagan repeated some of her prior criticism, suggesting that her conservative colleagues were sometimes carrying out their policy preferences. She cited, in particular, rulings from this term reining in the federal government’s power to regulate wetlands and rejecting President Joe Biden’s plan for student debt relief.
 
Kagan said it’s important for the court “to act like a court … mostly it means acting with restraint and acting with a sense that you are not the king of the world and you do not get to make policy judgments for the American people.”

Kagan also stressed on Thursday that she believes it’s important for the court to achieve consensus when possible.

“I do believe very strongly in working strenuously to achieve consensus,” she said. “I would rather decide less and have greater consensus than decide more with division. … I like to search for what might be thought of as principled compromises. Some compromises you can’t make, but some compromises you can.”

On balance, Kagan’s latest remarks seemed to lack the edge of her comments last summer and fall, when she often sounded profoundly disillusioned with the court.


“Some years are better than other years,” Kagan said last year as she looked back over the term in which the court ruled on abortion. “Time will tell whether this is a court that can get back … to finding common ground.”

In her speeches last year, she even skewered some of the banal anecdotes justices often tell about their interactions, suggesting that they may mislead by masking tensions on the court.

“I don’t see why anybody should care that I can talk to some of my colleagues about baseball, unless that becomes a way for a better, more collaborative relationship about our cases and work,” Kagan said last October.

Kagan’s public statements that the court’s legitimacy was being fairly questioned prompted Roberts to offer an unusual brush-back pitch.

“Simply because people disagree with an opinion is not a basis for questioning the legitimacy of the court,” the chief justice said last summer, without naming Kagan or other critics.

In the court’s most recent term, the court’s conservative supermajority did not always vote in lockstep in the contentious and politically controversial cases. Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the court’s three liberals in a key redistricting case from Alabama, turning aside efforts to undercut legal requirements to create or maintain districts where minority voters have a strong chance of electing candidates of their choice.

And a third conservative on the court, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, joined Roberts, Kavanaugh and the liberals to fend off an expansive claim that the Constitution gives state legislatures sweeping authority over election laws, practices and disputes, with little role for state courts or even governors.

During an appearance at a legal conference in Minnesota last month, Kavanaugh cited those decisions as evidence that the court is not divided into inflexible, warring camps.

“We have lived up, in my estimation, to deciding cases based on law, not based on partisan affiliation or partisanship,” Kavanaugh said. “We work … as a team of nine.”

Despite those compromises and instances of moderation, the overall rightward shift of the court remained unmistakable. Three of the highest-profile cases of the term — decided on the last day decisions were released — all came down along the court’s 6-3 ideological divide.

The string of stinging defeats for the court’s liberal wing came in cases rejecting the use of race in college admissions, overturning Biden’s $400 billion student debt relief plan, and upholding the rights of business owners to deny some kinds of services to LGBTQ people.

At the outset of the nearly hourlong conversation on Thursday, Kagan discussed one particularly contentious case from the current term that found her in an unusually barbed disagreement with a fellow liberal justice and the court’s only other Obama appointee, Sonia Sotomayor.


Kagan, a proud New Yorker, didn’t mince words in her dissent or in discussing it at the conference — although she seemed to find humor in the furor created by her disagreement with Sotomayor in the case involving Andy Warhol’s adaptation of an iconic photograph of the musician Prince.


“We just kind of went at each other hammer and tongs. We had some choice words for each other,” Kagan said, drawing laughter from the audience. Kagan said that while she often agrees with Sotomayor, “I think Justice Sotomayor gets stuff wrong on other occasions and this is one of them.”

“If you think that Justice Kagan and Justice Sotomayor are identical judges, with identical methodologies, reaching identical outcomes on the basis of identical approaches to law, I have to say you haven’t been paying careful attention,” Kagan said. “Judges are different.”

After positively citing Roberts’ work on the ethics issue, Kagan also again paid tribute to the chief. He was the only other justice to join her in dissent in the Warhol case, and he assigned her to write what both expected would be a classic Kagan opinion.

“Both he knew and I knew that he was giving me a gift,” she said.

Quote:CNN — 

Justice Clarence Thomas disclosed Thursday that Republican megadonor Harlan Crow paid for private jet trips for Thomas in 2022 to attend a speech in Texas and a vacation at Crow’s luxurious New York estate, as ethics questions continue to rock the Supreme Court.
In one instance, Thomas said he took the private transportation in May because of “increased security risk” following the leak of the Dobbs opinion overturning Roe v. Wade that had occurred a few days earlier.


Newly released financial disclosure forms Thursday also amend prior reports to include information that had been “inadvertently omitted” from past forms including a real estate deal between Thomas and Crow back in 2014.

Thomas made the disclosures after receiving an extension to file the yearly reports that were originally due in May 2023. Justice Samuel Alito released his financial disclosures Thursday as well.


The filing comes as Thomas has been under fire from critics who say he has skirted ethics laws for years by failing to properly disclose luxury trips, real estate transactions and other gifts bankrolled by wealthy friends.


A lawyer for Thomas released a statement and executive summary and said that there had been “no willful ethics transgressions” and that prior reporting errors were “strictly inadvertent.” The lawyer also refuted what he called a “partisan feeding frenzy” against the justice that he said amounted to “political blood sport.”


ProPublica was the first to report Thomas’ long-time friendship with Crow and the extent of their travel over the years. In a statement after the ProPublica report, Thomas acknowledged the friendship but stressed that Crow did not have business before the court. He said that he had not disclosed the years of travel because he was advised at the time that he did not have to report it. In the statement, he noted however, that the Judicial Conference had recently changed the rules. “It is, of course, my intent to follow this guidance in the future,” Thomas wrote.


The new change, which applies to activity covered by the 2023 report, makes clear that travel by private jets as well as stays in commercial properties are no longer considered a part of a hospitality exception.










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Harlan Crow denies influence over Justice Thomas

06:02 - Source: CNN

Additional disclosures from Thomas includes real estate deal
Thomas also disclosed Thursday that he had “inadvertently omitted” other information in past reports including a life insurance policy for his spouse, conservative activist Virginia Thomas that had a cash value under $100,000 and a bank account valued at under $70,000 in 2018.
In addition, he said that he should have disclosed a 2014 private real estate deal between Crow, Thomas and members of Thomas’ family.

It involved the sale of three Georgia properties including the home where Thomas’ mother currently lives. The deal was not listed on his financial disclosure forms.


A source close to Thomas told CNN in April that Thomas initially believed he didn’t have to disclose because he lost money on the deal. 
The real estate deal was first reported by ProPublica, a nonprofit news organization.


The three properties in Savannah, Georgia, were owned by Thomas, his mother, Leola Williams, and his late brother’s family.


As a part of the negotiated sale price, Williams, who was 85 at the time of the deal, was given an occupancy agreement to be able to live in the home for the rest of her life, the source said. She lives rent free but is responsible for paying the property taxes and insurance.
Section VII of the financial disclosure form clearly indicates, however, that a “transaction” needs to be listed irrespective if there was a loss.


Crow-paid travel
As for the travel that Crow paid for in 2022, it included a private jet for Thomas who gave a talk at the Old Parkland Conference sponsored by the Hoover Institution, the Manhattan Institute and the American Enterprise Institute. The event – an assembly of scholars and lawyers – was billed as a gathering to explore alternative solutions to the economic and social advancement of Black Americans. The conference was held at a building owned by Crow Holdings.


According to the disclosure, Thomas flew down to be the keynote speaker of the event in February, but returned via private jet “due to an unexpected ice storm.”


The talk was rescheduled in May and Thomas rode round trip on Crow’s plane. In the financial disclosure form Thomas notes that “because of increased security risk following the Dobbs opinion leak, the May flights were by private plane for official travel as filer’s security detail recommended noncommerical travel whenever possible.”


In addition, in July, Thomas traveled to Crow’s private Adirondack resort for vacation.


An attorney for Thomas, Elliot S. Berke, released a statement Thursday saying that Thomas “has always strived for full transparency and adherence to the law.” He noted that after new guidance was issued by the Judicial Conference in March, Thomas received an extension.


He also referenced ethics complaints that have been filed against Thomas by “left wing” organizations. “We look forward to answering any additional questions or addressing any remaining issues,” he said for “sensationalized allegations.”


The new reports are likely to fuel key Senate Democrats who are pushing for legislation that would implement a series of ethics and transparency reforms at the Supreme Court, including a code of ethics directed at the justices themselves. Although the justices have discussed amongst themselves whether they should commit to an ethics code aimed specifically at the high court, they have yet to come to a consensus.

Senate Judiciary Committee member Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse displays a copy of a painting featuring Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas alongside other conservative leaders during a hearing on Supreme Court ethics reform on Capitol Hill on May 2 in Washington, DC.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

“This late-come effort at ‘Clean-up on Aisle Three’ won’t deter us from fully investigating the massive, secret, right-wing billionaire influence in which this Court is enmired,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat who chairs the Senate Judiciary subcommittee looking into court ethics, in a statement.


Justice Elena Kagan confirmed in an appearance in late July that the justices have been discussing possible reforms, although they have not yet reached an agreement on whether to move forward with a formal code.


For his part, Alito told The Wall Street Journal in July that Congress should stop trying to impose ethics rules on the high court.
“No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court – period,” Alito said in the interview.
As things stand, public approval ratings of the court have held steady at historic lows.


Gabe Roth, who heads the organization Fix the Court, said Thursday that although Thomas “says he plans on more closely following the disclosure laws moving forward, his penchant for living a lifestyle few of us can only dream of is not reflected in today’s report.”


“To be fully compliant with the law, he should go back and amend earlier disclosures to recount the full extent of the lavish gifts he’s received over the years,” Roth said.


Alito acknowledges paid trip to Rome
Alito also released his 2022 financial disclosure forms on Thursday after receiving an extension from the May 15 deadline.


Alito’s 13-page report confirms reporting by CNN earlier this year that a trip the justice took to Rome in 2022 to give a keynote speech to Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Initiative was paid for by the conservative group. The initiative’s legal clinic has filed a series of “friend-of-the-court” briefs in religious liberty cases before the Supreme Court since its founding in 2020.
[/url]

Samuel Alito mocks foreign critics of repealing Roe v. Wade in Rome speech on religious liberty
[url=https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/28/politics/samuel-alito-religious-liberty-notre-dame-rome/index.html]
Though the report doesn’t detail how much the trip to Rome cost, it notes that the law school covered Alito’s transportation, lodging and meals so he could speak at the Religious Liberty Summit.


The forms also note that Alito was paid to teach courses at two law schools: Regent University School of Law and Duke Law School. For the Regent gig, the justice was paid $9,000, according to the disclosure, while Duke paid him $20,250 for a pair of teaching jobs. The school also covered Alito’s lodging and meals.


This story has been updated with additional details.

Quote:[color=var(--color-text-supp)]Thomas has attended at least two Koch donor summits, putting him in the extraordinary position of having helped a political network that has brought multiple cases before the Supreme Court.[/color]

[color=var(--color-text-hed)]Series:Friends of the Court: [color=var(--color-text-meta)]SCOTUS Justices’ Beneficial Relationships With Billionaire Donors
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ decadeslong friendship with real estate tycoon Harlan Crow and Samuel Alito’s luxury travel with billionaire Paul Singer have raised questions about influence and ethics at the nation's highest court.[/color]
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.[/color]


On Jan. 25, 2018, dozens of private jets descended on Palm Springs International Airport. Some of the richest people in the country were arriving for the annual winter donor summit of the Koch network, the political organization founded by libertarian billionaires Charles and David Koch. A long weekend of strategizing, relaxation in the California sun and high-dollar fundraising lay ahead.

Just after 6 p.m., a Gulfstream G200 jet touched down on the tarmac. One of the Koch network’s most powerful allies was on board: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

During the summit, the justice went to a private dinner for the network’s donors. Thomas has attended Koch donor events at least twice over the years, according to interviews with three former network employees and one major donor. The justice was brought in to speak, staffers said, in the hopes that such access would encourage donors to continue giving.
That puts Thomas in the extraordinary position of having served as a fundraising draw for a network that has brought cases before the Supreme Court, including one of the most closely watched of the upcoming term.

Thomas never reported the 2018 flight to Palm Springs on his annual financial disclosure form, an apparent violation of federal law requiring justices to report most gifts. A Koch network spokesperson said the network did not pay for the private jet. Since Thomas didn’t disclose it, it’s not clear who did pay.

Thomas’ involvement in the events is part of a yearslong, personal relationship with the Koch brothers that has remained almost entirely out of public view. It developed over years of trips to the Bohemian Grove, a secretive all-men’s retreat in Northern California. Thomas has been a regular at the Grove for two decades, where he stayed in a small camp with real estate billionaire Harlan Crow and the Kochs, according to records and people who’ve spent time with him there.

A spokesperson for the Koch network, formally known as Stand Together, did not answer detailed questions about his role at the Palm Springs events but said, “Thomas wasn’t present for fundraising conversations.”


“The idea that attending a couple events to promote a book or give dinner remarks, as all the justices do, could somehow be undue influence just doesn’t hold water,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

“All of the sitting Justices and many who came before them have contributed to the national dialogue in speeches, book tours, and social gatherings,” the statement added. “Our events are no different. To claim otherwise is false.”

In a series of stories this year, ProPublica reported that Thomas has accepted undisclosed luxury travel from Crow and a coterie of other ultrawealthy men. Crow also purchased Thomas’ mother’s home and paid private school tuition for the child Thomas was raising as his son. Thomas has said little in response. In a statement earlier this year, he said that Crow is a close friend whom he has joined on “family trips.” He has also argued that he was not required to disclose the free vacations. Thomas did not respond to questions for this story.

The code of conduct for the federal judiciary lays out rules designed to preserve judges’ impartiality and independence, which it calls “indispensable to justice in our society.” The code specifically prohibits both political activity and participation in fundraising. Judges are advised, for instance, not to “associate themselves” with any group “publicly identified with controversial legal, social, or political positions.”

But the code of conduct only applies to the lower courts. At the Supreme Court, justices decide what’s appropriate for themselves.

“I can’t imagine — it takes my breath away, frankly — that he would go to a Koch network event for donors,” said John E. Jones III, a retired federal judge appointed by President George W. Bush. Jones said that if he had gone to a Koch summit as a district court judge, “I’d have gotten a letter that would’ve commenced a disciplinary proceeding.”

“What you’re seeing is a slow creep toward unethical behavior. Do it if you can get away with it,” Jones said.

The Koch network is among the largest and most influential political organizations of the last half century, and it’s underwritten a far-reaching campaign to influence the course of American law. In a case the Supreme Court will hear this coming term, the justices could give the network a historic victory: limiting federal agencies’ power to issue regulations in areas ranging from the environment to labor rights to consumer protection. After shepherding the case to the court, Koch network staff attorneys are now asking the justices to overturn a decades-old precedent. (Thomas used to support the precedent but flipped his position in recent years.)

[color=var(--color-text-supp)]Charles and David Koch [color=var(--color-text-meta)]Credit:David Zalubowski/AP Image and Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images[/color]
Two years ago, one of the network’s groups was the plaintiff in another Supreme Court case, which was about nonprofits’ ability to keep their donors secret. In that case, Thomas sided with the 6-3 conservative majority in the Koch group’s favor.
Charles Koch did not respond to detailed questions for this story. David Koch died in 2019.[/color]

The Koch network is an overlapping set of nonprofits perhaps best known for its work helping cultivate the Tea Party movement in the Obama years. Recently rebranded as Stand Together, the network includes the powerful Americans for Prosperity Action, which spent over $65 million supporting Republican candidates in the last election cycle.

Though Charles Koch is one of the 25 richest people in the world, worth an estimated $64 billion, he raises money from other wealthy people to amplify the network’s reach. The network brought in at least $700 million in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available. It has more than 1,000 employees who, on paper, work for different groups.

But for all its complexity, the network is a centralized operation, staffers said. Many of the groups occupy the same buildings in Arlington, Virginia, and share leadership and often staff. Many of the donations go into a central pot, from which hundreds of millions of dollars are disbursed to the smaller groups focused on various political and social concerns, according to tax filings and former employees.

For decades, the Kochs have held deep antipathy to government regulation. When Charles Koch’s brother David ran for vice president on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1980, the party platform called for abolishing the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy and the Food and Drug Administration.

Every winter, the network holds its marquee fundraising event in the Coachella Valley in Southern California. Hundreds of donors fly in to learn how their money is being spent and plan for the coming year. Former staffers describe an emphasis on preventing leaks that bordered on obsession. The network often rents out an entire hotel for the event, keeping out eavesdroppers. Documents left behind are methodically shredded. One recent attendee recalled Koch security staff in a golf cart escorting their Uber driver out of the hotel to make sure he left. The former staffers spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation.

To score an invite to the summit, donors typically have to give at least $100,000 a year. Those who give in the millions receive special treatment, including dinners with Charles Koch and high-profile guests. Doling out access to powerful public officials was seen as a potent fundraising strategy, former staffers said. The dinners’ purpose was “giving donors access and giving them a reason to come or to continue to come in the future,” a former Koch network executive told ProPublica.
[color=var(--color-text-supp)]At the 2018 Koch donor summit in Palm Springs, California, a speaker touted the network’s accomplishments defeating taxes and government regulations. [color=var(--color-text-meta)]Credit:via Facebook[/color]
Thomas has attended at least one of the dinners for top-tier donors, according to a donor who attended and a former high-level network staffer.

“These donors found it fascinating,” said another former senior employee, recounting a Thomas appearance at one summit where the justice discussed his judicial philosophy. “Donors want to feel special. They want to feel on the inside.”
A former fundraising staffer for the Koch network said the organization’s relationship with Thomas was considered a valuable asset: “Offering a high-level donor the experience of meeting with someone like that — that’s huge.”
Many details about Thomas’ role at the summits, including the specifics of his remarks, remain unclear. The network spokesperson declined to answer if Thomas’ appearances were ever tied to a specific initiative or program.[/color]

Thomas’ appearances were arranged with the help of Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society leader, according to the former senior network employee. “Leonard was the conduit who would get him,” the former employee said. During one summit, Thomas gave a talk with Leo in an interview format, the donor recalled.

“Justice Thomas attends events all over the country, as do all the Justices, and I was privileged to join him,” Leo said in a statement in response to questions about the Koch donor events. “All the necessary due diligence was performed to ensure the Justice’s attendance at the events was compliant with all ethics requirements.”

While attending the donor events would likely violate the lower courts’ prohibition on fundraising, experts said, the Supreme Court has a narrow internal definition of a fundraiser: an event that raises more money than it costs or where attendees are explicitly asked for money while the event’s happening.

On the Thursday before the January 2018 summit in Palm Springs, Thomas flew there on a chartered private jet, according to records reviewed by ProPublica. Four days later, the plane flew to an airport outside Denver, where Thomas appeared at a ceremony honoring his former clerk, federal Judge Allison Eid. The next day, it flew back to northern Virginia where Thomas lives.

Thomas’ financial disclosure for that year contains two speaking engagements: one in New York City and another at a Federalist Society conference in Texas. His trip to the Koch event in California is not on the form.
[color=var(--color-text-supp)]Thomas’ 2018 disclosure form did not include his trip to the Koch donor summit in Palm Springs. [color=var(--color-text-meta)]Credit:via the Free Law Project[/color]
For the event that year, the Koch network rented out the Renaissance Esmeralda Resort and Spa. On the main stage, donors heard from Hall of Fame NFL cornerback Deion Sanders, who was working with the Kochs on anti-poverty programs in Dallas. Another speaker delivered a report card on the group’s political wins large and small: “repealed voter-approved donor disclosure initiative”; “retraction of mining & environmental overreach”; “stopped Albuquerque paid sick leave mandate.”[/color]

During the event, the group announced a new initiative focused on getting conservatives on the Supreme Court and the federal bench. The network, which had already given millions of dollars to Leo’s Federalist Society, planned to mobilize its activists and buy advertisements to push senators to vote for President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees. They appointed a former employee of Ginni Thomas, the justice’s wife, to lead the effort.

The first glimpse of Thomas’ connection to the network came more than a decade ago. In 2010, reporters obtained an invitation sent to potential Koch donors that mentioned Thomas had been “featured” at one of the network’s previous summits.

After critics called for more information about Thomas’ attendance, the Supreme Court press office downplayed the episode. A court spokesperson acknowledged Thomas had been in the Palm Springs area during the Kochs’ January 2008 summit. However, she said he was there to talk about his memoir at a Federalist Society dinner that was separate from the donor summit but was also sponsored by Charles Koch. She added that Thomas made a “brief drop-by” at the network summit that year but said he “was not a participant.” (Thomas disclosed the 2008 Palm Springs trip as a Federalist Society speech.)

In the 15 years since, the Koch network has left a deep imprint on American society. Its advocacy is credited with helping stamp out Republican Party support for combating climate change, once an issue that drew bipartisan concern. The “full weight of the network” was thrown behind passing the 2017 Trump tax cut, securing a windfall for the Kochs and their donors. And the upcoming Supreme Court term could bring the network a victory it has pursued for years: overturning a major legal precedent known as Chevron.

While most Americans aren’t familiar with the 1984 case Chevron v. NRDC, it’s one of the Supreme Court’s most-cited decisions. Legal scholars sometimes mention it in the same breath as Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade. In essence, Chevron is about government agencies’ ability to issue regulations. After a law is enacted, it’s generally up to agencies across the government to make detailed rules putting it into effect. The Chevron decision said courts should be hesitant to second-guess the agencies’ determinations. In the years that followed, judges cited Chevron in upholding rules that protect endangered species, speed up the approval process for new cellphone towers and grant benefits to coal miners suffering from black lung.

The Koch network has challenged Chevron in the courts and its lobbyists have pushed Congress to pass a law nullifying the decision. It has also provided millions of dollars in grants to law professors making the case to overturn it.

The network’s position has become increasingly popular in recent years. Once broadly supported by academics and judges on the right, Chevron is now anathema to many in the conservative legal movement. And there’s no more prominent convert than Thomas.

In 2005, Thomas wrote the majority opinion in a case that expanded Chevron’s protections for government agencies. Ten years later, he was openly questioning the doctrine. Then in 2020, Thomas renounced his own earlier decision, writing that he’d determined the doctrine is unconstitutional after all — a rare reversal for a justice with a reputation for being unmovable in his views.

By last year, Koch network strategists sensed that victory could be at hand. During an internal briefing for network staff, Jorge Lima, a senior vice president at Americans for Prosperity, said the Supreme Court seemed primed to radically change its approach to the issue. The network was trying to find cases that could bring about major changes in the law, according to a video of the meeting obtained by the watchdog group Documented. “We’re doubling down on this strategy,” Lima told the crowd.

Several months later, the Supreme Court announced it would take up a case, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, in which Koch network staff attorneys represent the plaintiffs. If Thomas and his colleagues side with them this coming term, Chevron will be overturned once and for all.

Without Chevron, “any place you would need regulation to address a pressing social problem, it’s going to be more costly to get it, harder to implement it and it’s not going to go as far,” said Noah Rosenblum, a professor at New York University School of Law.

“Loper Bright is a case seeking to restore one of the core tenets of our democracy: that Congress, not the administrative agency, makes the laws,” the Koch network spokesperson said.

Ethics experts said Thomas’ undisclosed ties to the Koch network could call his impartiality in the case into doubt. This sort of potential conflict is why the judiciary has rules against both political activity and fundraising, they said. “Parties litigating in the court before Justice Thomas don’t know the extent of Thomas’ relationship with the parties on the other side,” said James Sample, a Hofstra University law professor who studies judicial ethics. “You have to be pretty cynical to not think that’s a problem.”

The Supreme Court itself said in a recent statement to The Associated Press that “justices exercise caution in attending events that might be described as political in nature.” But unlike with lower court judges, there is no formal oversight of the justices.

Two decades ago, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg delivered the opening remarks at a lecture cosponsored by the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, a women’s rights group that filed friend-of-the-court briefs at the Supreme Court. It was a public event co-sponsored by the New York City Bar Association. But some judicial ethics experts criticized the justice for affiliating herself with an advocacy group.

Thirteen Republican lawmakers, including Mike Pence and Marsha Blackburn, who now sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, went further, calling on Ginsburg to recuse herself from any future cases related to abortion. The justice brushed off the criticism: “I think and thought and still think it’s a lovely thing,” she said of the lecture series. (Ginsburg died in 2020.)

Charles and David Koch’s access to Thomas has gone well beyond his participation in their donor events. For years, the brothers had opportunities to meet privately with Thomas thanks to the justice’s regular trips to the Bohemian Grove, an all-male retreat that attracts some of the nation’s most influential corporate and political figures. Thomas has been a regular at the Grove for 25 years as Harlan Crow’s guest, according to internal documents and interviews with dozens of members, other guests and workers at the retreat.
[color=var(--color-text-supp)]Charles Koch at the Grove. His hat features the club’s owl insignia. [color=var(--color-text-meta)]Credit:Obtained by ProPublica[/color]
“What we’re seeing emerge is someone who is living his professional life in a way that’s seeing these extrajudicial opportunities as a perk of the office,” said Charles Geyh, a judicial ethics expert at Indiana University law school. Judges can have social lives, he said, and there are no clear lines for when a social gathering could pose a problem. But the confluence of powerful political actors and undisclosed gifts puts Thomas’ trips far outside the norm for judges’ conduct, Geyh said: “There’s a culture of impartiality that’s really at risk here.”[/color]

The Grove is an exclusive, two-week party held in the Sonoma County redwoods every July. A member or his guest can wander from the Grove’s shooting range to a lecture by Blackwater founder Erik Prince, or from a mint julep party to a performance by the Grove’s symphony orchestra. Wine, sometimes at $500 a bottle, flows freely, and late at night, members consume clam chowder and chili by the gallon. More than one attendee recalled walking outside in the morning to find a former cabinet secretary who fell asleep drunk in the grass.

There’s a saying among the Bohemians, as the club’s members call themselves: The only place you should be publicly associated with the Grove is in your obituary. That privacy is paramount, members said, in part to allow the powerful to speak freely — and party — without worrying about showing up in the press. Only designated photographers are allowed to take pictures. Cellphones are strictly forbidden.

[color=var(--color-text-supp)]An entrance to the Grove [color=var(--color-text-meta)]Credit:Preston Gannaway, special to ProPublica[/color]
Members typically must pay thousands of dollars to bring a guest. Several people ProPublica spoke to said that before the pandemic, they saw Thomas there just about every year. ProPublica was able to confirm six trips Thomas took to the retreat that he didn’t disclose. Flight records suggest Crow has repeatedly dispatched his private jet to Virginia to pick up Thomas and ferry him to the Sonoma County airport and back, usually for a long weekend in the middle of the Grove festival.[/color]

“I was taken with how comfortable he was in that environment and how popular,” a person who stayed in the same lodge as Thomas one year said. “He holds court there.”

In response to questions about his travel to the Grove with Thomas, Crow said Thomas is “a man of incredible integrity” and that he’s never heard the justice “discuss pending legal matters with anyone.” Neither Crow nor Thomas responded to questions about whether the justice reimbursed him for the trips.

(Other justices have Grove connections too. The mid-20th-century Chief Justice Earl Warren was a member. Among modern justices, Thomas appears to have been the most frequent guest. Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016, attended many years ago. Justice Stephen Breyer went in 2006; he told ProPublica he was the guest of his brother and that to the best of his memory, he paid his own way. Justice Anthony Kennedy went at least twice before he retired. Kennedy, who did not respond to a request for comment, did not disclose the trips. It’s unclear if he needed to because his son is a member and gifts from family don’t need to be reported.)
[color=var(--color-text-supp)]The annual Grove festival kicks off with a highly produced ceremony in which an effigy representing worldly cares and concerns is burned. [color=var(--color-text-meta)]Credit:Obtained by ProPublica[/color]
The Grove is broken up into more than 100 “camps,” essentially adult fraternity houses where the same group of men stay together year after year. Hill Billies was George H. W. Bush’s camp. Nancy Pelosi’s husband has been a longtime member of Stowaway. Thomas stays with Crow at a camp called Midway.

One of the ritzier camps, Midway employs a staff of cooks and personal valets and boasts an extensive wine cellar. The men sleep in private cabins that zigzag up a hillside. Known for its Republican leanings, Midway has a string of superrich political donors as members, including an heir to the Coors beer empire and the owner of the New York Jets. Charles Koch is an active member, as was his brother David. It’s not clear if Thomas has ever been the guest of a member other than Crow.
[color=var(--color-text-supp)]Bohemians, as the club’s members call themselves, mingle on the deck of Midway camp.[/color] [color=var(--color-text-meta)]Credit:Obtained by ProPublica[/color]
During the annual retreats, the Kochs often discussed political strategy with fellow guests, according to multiple people who’ve spent time with them at Midway. A few years ago, Brian Hooks, one of the leaders of their political network, was a guest at the camp the same weekend Thomas was there. A former Midway employee recalled the brothers discussing super PAC spending during the Obama years and complaining about government regulation.[/color]

“Chevron was one of the big things the Koch brothers were interested in,” the former employee said. He did not remember if Thomas was present for any of the discussions of the doctrine.


Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire
[url=https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-scotus-undisclosed-luxury-travel-gifts-crow][/url]
But Thomas and the Kochs developed a bond over their years at the retreat, according to five people who spent time with them there. They discussed politics, business and their families. They often sat together at meals and sat up talking at night at the lodge. A photo obtained by ProPublica captures Thomas and David Koch smiling on Midway’s deck. David’s windbreaker features an owl insignia, the symbol of the club.

One tradition at Midway is a lecture series, often held beneath the redwoods on the camp’s deck. The weekend Thomas was there in July 2016, the Midway schedule featured a talk from Henry Kissinger and another by Michael Bloomberg and Arthur Brooks, then president of the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute. Over breakfast Friday morning, the author Bjorn Lomborg delivered a lecture on climate change. Lomborg has for years argued the threat of global warming is overstated, saying that rising temperatures will actually save lives.
[color=var(--color-text-supp)]A Midway schedule featured a talk by Thomas and other events. [color=var(--color-text-meta)]Credit:Highlighting by ProPublica. Obtained by ProPublica.[/color]
Thomas spoke that year as well. He talked about his friend Justice Scalia, who had recently died, according to a person who attended. Scalia, a conservative luminary, had been a prominent advocate for the Chevron doctrine, but Thomas said he believed his colleague was coming around to Thomas’ revised view on it before his death.[/color]

Thomas didn’t explain what he meant by that. “It was an aside,” the person said, “like he assumed most of the people in the room knew his position.”

(09-22-2023, 02:12 PM)pally Wrote: Isn't it amazing how many politically motivated billionaires suddenly became friends with Thomas AFTER he became a Justice?