Justices'

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Alito blames wife

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito rejected a request to recuse himself from cases related to Jan. 6 amid backlash over two controversial flags flown at his homes, Axios' Jacob Knutson reports.

• Why it matters: In his most detailed explanation yet, the conservative justice told senators his wife was "solely responsible" for flying the flags, which have become symbols of the pro-Trump "Stop the Steal" movement.

The first incident — the flying of an upside-down American flag at their Virginia home in January 2021 — came after a "very nasty neighborhood dispute" that caused great distress to his wife, Alito wrote.

• The justice said he asked Martha-Ann Alito to take down the flag when he became aware she was flying it, but that she refused to do so for several days.
• Noting that he and his wife jointly own their home, Alito claimed "there were no additional steps that I could have taken to have the flag taken down more promptly."

The second incident — the 2023 flying of an "Appeal to Heaven" flag associated with Christian nationalism and carried by Jan. 6 rioters — was also Martha-Ann Alito's doing, the justice said.

• Alito said he and his wife were "not aware of any connection between this historic flag and the 'Stop the Steal Movement'" and that he "assumed she was flying it to express a religious and patriotic message."
• "My wife is fond of flying flags. I am not," Alito wrote, concluding that the incidents do not meet the standard for recusal.

Go deeper ... Read the letter.

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Alito rejects calls to quit Supreme Court cases on Trump and Jan. 6 because of flag controversies

WASHINGTON (AP) — Justice Samuel Alito is rejecting calls to step aside from Supreme Court cases involving former President Donald Trump and Jan. 6 defendants, saying his wife hoisted the two controversial flags that flew above their homes.

https://apnews.com/article/alito-flag-supreme-court-roberts-justice-senate-e53c1d1fef7b81f9dc87fa31b1622c4c?

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Jurors in Trump’s hush money trial are zeroing in on testimonies Deliberations are resuming today after jurors asked to rehear potentially crucial testimony about the alleged hush money scheme at the heart of the history-making case. Read more.

Things to know: What is the jury deciding: To convict Trump, the jury must unanimously find he created a false entry in his company’s records, or caused someone else to do so, with the intent of violating or concealing a violation of a state law making it illegal for conspirators “to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means.” A conviction would mean that jurors all agreed that at least one of the three unlawful acts argued was done to promote Trump’s election.   What will we know about the decision: Very little. The deliberations are secret, though jurors — whose identities are being kept from the public — can have a court officer deliver notes from them to the judge. There is also no limit on how many days deliberations can continue.   What happens if there is or is not a verdict: Jurors can either send a note saying there is a verdict, but not what it is, or they can say they can’t agree and the judge, in consultation with both sides, must decide what to do next. There’s no rule about how long a jury must take to resolve differences before a mistrial is declared. A guilty verdict would deliver a stunning legal reckoning for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee while an acquittal would represent a major win for Trump and embolden him on the campaign trail.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Posts misrepresent New York judge’s instructions to jury in Trump hush money trial   Here’s what every key witness said at Donald Trump’s hush money trial   Cohen’s credibility, campaigning at court and other takeaways from Trump trial’s closing arguments

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Flag controversy

 

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito told lawmakers in a letter Wednesday that he will not recuse himself from cases involving the 2020 presidential election or the January 6, 2021, US Capitol riot despite concerns about two controversial flags that have flown on his properties. The New York Times  published a photo this month of an inverted American flag raised at Alito's Virginia home in 2021 — a symbol for former President Donald Trump's supporters who falsely claimed widespread fraud in the presidential election. Alito said the upside-down US flag was raised by his wife. Additionally, an "Appeal to Heaven" flag was seen on display at his vacation property last summer, according to reports. That flag, which has a history dating to the Revolutionary War, has also become a symbol for Trump supporters.

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Roberts rejects Senate Democrats’ request to discuss Supreme Court ethics and Alito flag controversy

WASHINGTON (AP) — Chief Justice John Roberts on Thursday declined an invitation to meet with Democratic senators to talk about Supreme Court ethics and the controversy over flags that flew outside homes owned by Justice Samuel Alito.

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-alito-flag-roberts-senate-dc879158dd42050a9a52c850abfb90b9?

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Scoop: Kavanaugh plans memoir

Photo illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios. Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/AP/Bloomberg via Getty Images Justice Brett Kavanaugh is working on a legal memoir at a time when the Supreme Court is being increasingly scrutinized amid falling public trust. The book, which isn't yet titled, is expected to be published in 2025 or 2026, a source close to the project tells me. Why it matters: Kavanaugh, 59, has been relatively quiet amid a host of controversies. Now he's expected to give his point of view on everything from the fracas over his 2018 confirmation to the 2022 plot to kill him. Kavanaugh originally signed a contract with Regnery Publishing, a leading conservative house. But after Regnery was sold to Skyhorse Publishing in December, the project moved to the Center Street imprint at Hachette Book Group. ?️ The big picture: Kavanaugh is the latest of several justices to write memoirs. Justice Sonia Sotomayor's 2013 memoir, "My Beloved World," debuted as a No. 1 New York Times bestseller. Justice Neil Gorsuch's "A Republic, If You Can Keep It" was also a Times bestseller. A memoir by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, "Lovely One," is due out in September. A book deal by Justice Amy Coney Barrett drew protests in publishing circles. Between the lines: Kavanaugh knows there's great interest in what he has to say — and wanted to tell his story himself, as other justices have, the source says. ? Reality check: The book is sure to be as polarizing as its author.

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Justice Clarence Thomas Acknowledges He Should Have Disclosed Free Trips From Billionaire Donor

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas acknowledged for the first time in a new financial disclosure filing that he should have publicly reported two free vacations he received from billionaire Harlan Crow.

https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-gift-disclosures-harlan-crow?

Clarence Thomas Defends Undisclosed “Family Trips” With GOP Megadonor. Here Are the Facts.

In a rare public statement, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas responded Friday to a ProPublica report that revealed that Thomas has, for decades, accepted luxury travel from billionaire Republican megadonor Harlan Crow and failed to disclose it.

https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-response-trips-legal-experts-harlan-crow?

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Clarence Thomas officially discloses trips gifted by GOP megadonor

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has officially disclosed two 2019 trips paid for by Republican megadonor Harlan Crow in new financial filings.

https://www.axios.com/2024/06/07/scotus-2023-financial-disclosure-clarence-thomas-harlan-crow?

Thomas acknowledges more travel paid for by Harlan Crow. Colleagues report six-figure book payments

WASHINGTON (AP) — Justice Clarence Thomas on Friday belatedly acknowledged more travel paid by Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, while several colleagues reported six-figure payments as part of book deals.

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-financial-disclosures-gifts-travel-d0873c92792f6c0791c9269fe05ed937?

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Justice Alito questions possibility of political compromise in secret recording

WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is heard questioning whether compromise between the left and right is possible in a conversation posted on social media. The conservative justice is also heard agreeing with a woman who says the United States should return “to a place of godliness.”

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-alito-conservative-secret-recording-c3943ef56442320f0940eb532fff624c?

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Harlan Crow Provided Clarence Thomas at Least 3 Previously Undisclosed Private Jet Trips, Senate Probe Finds

Billionaire political donor Harlan Crow provided at least three previously undisclosed private jet trips to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in recent years, an investigation by Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats has found.

https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-harlan-crow-private-jet-flights-senate-investigation-scotus?

Justice Clarence Thomas took more undisclosed trips paid for by a megadonor Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin says his committee’s ethics investigation into the Supreme Court has uncovered at least three additional trips given to Justice Clarence Thomas by GOP megadonor Harlan Crow. Read more.

Key points: In the past, Thomas has maintained that he is not required to disclose the many family trips that were paid for by the Texas megadonor because Crow and his wife Kathy are “among our dearest friends." There was no immediate comment from the court on the Senate report.   The committee has pushed the Supreme Court to adopt a stronger ethics code as trips by Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito came to light. An ethics code adopted by the justices in November treats travel, food and lodging as expenses rather than gifts, for which monetary values must be reported. However, Justices aren’t required to attach a value to expenses.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Supreme Court rules California man can’t trademark ‘Trump too small’   Abortion pill access is unchanged after the Supreme Court’s decision. Here’s what you need to know   Thomas acknowledges more travel paid for by Harlan Crow. Colleagues report six-figure book payments

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⚖️ Amy Coney Barrett makes her mark

Justice Amy Coney Barrett is establishing herself as a new intellectual center of gravity on the Supreme Court, Axios court-watcher Sam Baker writes.

• Why it matters: This is what Barrett's biggest fans predicted when she was first nominated — that she would not only be a solid right-leaning vote, but an influential justice with the potential to shape the broader contours of conservative legal doctrine.

Barrett is just as conservative as everyone knew she would be. She joined the court's rulings overturning Roe v. Wade, expanding gun rights and curtailing the powers of the federal government.

• But she's beginning to separate herself from the pack in important ways:

1. She seems less willing than some of her colleagues to fast-forward through parts of the legal process just to reach a particular outcome.
2. She has explicitly criticized some of the ways other conservatives use historical analysis to solve modern questions.
3. In the term that just ended, her positions were significantly less favorable to former President Trump than those of any other Republican appointee.

What we're watching

• Every justice has their own idiosyncrasies, but only a small number can build majorities around them in any given case. Fewer still can turn their unique judicial philosophies into a lasting, widely used legal doctrine. She may not become one of them, but there's a roadmap for how she could.
• Barrett's willingness to write her own concurring and dissenting opinions will help. Some of her colleagues don't do that very often, choosing to simply sign onto either the majority or the dissent without articulating their own thinking.

The bottom line: She is the youngest conservative on the court. She will still be there after Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito are gone and new, more junior justices cycle in.

• Keep reading.

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Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s security detail shoots man during attempted carjacking, authorities say

WASHINGTON (AP) — A member of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s security detail shot an armed man during an attempted carjacking in the early morning hours, according to court documents.

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-washington-dc-carjacking-4e97e37bef064a372d59ba74229c0982?

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Biden is considering proposals on Supreme Court term limits and ethics code, AP sources say President Joe Biden is seriously considering proposals to establish term limits for U.S. Supreme Court justices, and an ethics code that would be enforceable under law amid growing concerns that the justices are not held accountable, according to three people briefed on the plans. Read more.

Why this matters: It would mark a major shift for Biden, who has long resisted calls to reform the high court, though since taking office he has been increasingly vocal about his belief that the court is abandoning mainstream constitutional interpretation.   Biden’s call for major changes could help animate his voters. The proposals follow outrage among Democrats for the overturning of landmark decisions on abortion and regulatory powers. Biden is also considering an amendment that would eliminate broad immunity for presidents, following the most recent court term ruling on Donald Trump.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ House Democrats want to stop early DNC effort to nominate Biden before party convention in August   Biden says cooling political rhetoric doesn’t mean he’ll ‘stop telling the truth’ about Trump   Kamala Harris and JD Vance have talked, but they’re yet to agree on terms for a VP debate

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Justice Clarence Thomas took undisclosed 2010 trip with GOP megadonor, Democratic senator finds

WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failed to publicly disclose additional travel on GOP megadonor Harlan Crow’s private jet, a top Democratic senator who is backing an election-year push to tighten the high court’s ethics rules said Monday.

https://apnews.com/article/clarence-thomas-harlan-crow-jet-gop-donor-26268bf665ee2233f0e4c5ec836823b2?

Americans are ‘getting whacked’ by too many laws and regulations, Justice Gorsuch says in a new book

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ordinary Americans are “getting whacked” by too many laws and regulations, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch says in a new book that underscores his skepticism of federal agencies and the power they wield.

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-gorsuch-regulations-ethics-term-limits-3369051d70ec67942d72b5f2afd078d8?

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? Justice Jackson's first interview

In her first TV interview since joining the Supreme Court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said her colleagues failed to follow core legal principles when ruling that presidents have immunity for "official acts."

• "I was concerned about a system that appeared to provide immunity for one individual under one set of circumstances when we have a criminal justice system that had ordinarily treated everyone the same," Jackson told CBS News' Norah O'Donnell in an interview that will air in full Sunday.

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Supreme Court Justice Alito reports German princess gave him $900 concert tickets

WASHINGTON (AP) — Justice Samuel Alito reported Friday that he accepted $900 worth of concert tickets from a German princess, but disclosed no trips paid for by other people, according to a new financial disclosure form.

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-samuel-alito-financial-disclosures-7989d3ed7c3a72e51547d56fa112094f?

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TRUMP WHITE HOUSE GOT IN THE WAY OF BRETT KAVANAUGH SEXUAL ASSAULT INVESTIGATION

SIX YEARS AFTER Brett Kavanaugh joined the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority, a Democratic senator claims the FBI barely followed up on explosive sexual assault allegations that emerged during his nomination. A report released Tuesday lays out how White House officials kept a tight leash on the FBI’s inquiry, contrary to Trump’s claims at the time that the agency had “free rein” to investigate the claims. 

https://theintercept.com/2024/10/08/trump-fbi-brett-kavanaugh-sexual-assault-supreme-court/?

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Conservative legacy

The late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had a reputation as a great dissenter. The right-wing icon died in 2016, but now many of his former law clerks are on the front lines of hot-button cases involving abortion, gun rights and affirmative action.

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SCOTUS Hit by Leak of Justice’s ‘Champagne for Rulings’ Book

Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s new memoir contains some eyebrow-raising revelations.

Amy Coney Barrett’s chambers once broke out a bottle of champagne to celebrate her fellow Supreme Court justices joining a “tricky” opinion she authored, according to her unreleased memoir.

Listening to the Law is scheduled to be released on September 9 and earned the conservative justice a $2 million advance, according to CNN, which obtained a copy of the book.

The book defends Coney Barrett’s decision to end the constitutional right to an abortion and offers a behind-the-scenes look at how the court operates, detailing her daily life since President Donald Trump appointed her to fill the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat in 2020.

“The best days are when ‘join’ memos come in quickly and without requests for changes,” Coney Barrett wrote. “Once, when other justices quickly joined a particularly tricky opinion of mine, my chambers celebrated with an impromptu bottle of champagne.”

The book doesn’t say which decision inspired the celebration.

Given that manuscripts for major publishers need to be finalized months in advance—Listening is being released by Penguin Random House’s conservative imprint, Sentinel—she probably wasn’t referring to her June decision to rein in lower courts that have ruled against Trump’s policies, according to CNN.

The conservative justice has emerged as one of the most closely watched members of the court, after she broke with her fellow conservatives to side with the court’s liberal justices on a pair of cases involving the Trump administration.

The former Notre Dame law professor and federal appellate judge also recused herself from a high-profile case involving a Catholic charter school, which ultimately led to a conservative defeat, and ripped into Trump’s solicitor general for disrespecting her liberal colleague Justice Elena Kagan.

When she announced her book in March, she said she wanted to make the court less of a “mystery” for readers, The New York Times reported.

Over the past few years, the Supreme Court has been rocked by a series of leaks involving abortion-related decisions.

The court has failed to uncover who leaked a draft decision of the 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that overturned Roe v. Wade and ended the constitutional right to an abortion.

The Trump administration reopened the case in May, but so far, the FBI has only managed to uncover more information about the fault lines that have emerged between Coney Barrett and the other conservative justices.

In June 2024, the court accidentally posted its decision striking down Idaho’s draconian abortion ban, only to quickly remove the ruling until it could be officially released.

Internal communications about the case, Moyle v. United States, were leaked to CNN the following month, revealing that the decision was the culmination of a six-month battle between the six conservative justices.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/scotus-hit-by-leak-of-justice-amy-coney-barretts-champagne-for-rulings-book/?

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?️ Justice Amy Coney Barrett goes on record

Justice Amy Coney Barrett pushed back on the idea that the Supreme Court has become too political or overtly influenced by President Trump, telling CBS News' Norah O'Donnell that life tenure and a salary ensure their independence.

• Why it matters: A growing number of cases challenging Trump's extraordinary uses of executive power — including tariffs and ending birthright citizenship — could dominate the Supreme Court's next term.

Barrett — whose new book, "Listening to the Law," is out Tuesday — said she wants "people to have trust in the court" and understand how it works.

• "What the court does is not the same kind of work that Congress does, and it's not the same kind of work that the president does. Those are the political branches. The court is not one of the political branches."

Watch: More from the interview, which airs this weekend on "CBS Sunday Morning."

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Conservative SCOTUS Justice Makes Eyebrow-Raising Remark About Colleague

Samuel Alito opened up about one of the most influential conservative justices in modern history.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has offered a cryptic observation about his former colleague and mentor, the late conservative justice Antonin Scalia. Scalia, who was appointed to the bench in 1986 and became one of its most influential conservative members, died unexpectedly in his sleep at age 79, in early 2016. After his death, Alito—who has served on the Supreme Court since 2006—continued Scalia’s judicial legacy by authoring the Dobbs v. Jackson decision overturning the constitutional right to an abortion.

His decision drew heavily from dissents that Scalia had authored in previous cases upholding the right to an abortion, Alito told journalist and author James Rosen in a new interview published in Politico.

But while Scalia would have no doubt been happy that the court now boasts an entrenched 6-3 conservative majority, he would have been less enthusiastic about the state of American politics, which have grown “coarser and more polarized than ever before,” Rosen wrote.

“He would have been appalled at so much,” Alito told Rosen.

The 75-year-old did not elaborate, though he apparently agreed with one of Scalia’s children that the timing of the justice’s death meant he was spared from witnessing “so much that would have upset him,” as Rosen put it.

A few months after Scalia died, President Donald Trump was named the presumptive Republican nominee.

Trump went on to win the general election in November and appoint Scalia’s successor, Neil Gorsuch, after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell kept the seat vacant for more than a year in order to prevent President Barack Obama from filling it.

Since then, the court has been rocked by a series of scandals, including Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s disastrous confirmation hearings in 2018, during which Christine Blasey Ford accused him of sexual assault, which he denied.

A few years later, in 2022, a draft version of Alito’s decision in Dobbs was leaked to Politico. If the leak came up during Rosen’s 90-minute interview with Alito, the author didn’t mention it.

Subsequent leaks have revealed disagreements among the justices, including a bitter debate over the court’s toothless ethics rules, and a confidential memo in which Chief Justice John Roberts pushed to grant Trump broad immunity from prosecution.

The court is also facing record-low public trust as Alito and the other conservative justices have greenlit the vast majority of Trump’s policies, while the justices themselves face unprecedented security risks.

“Even since Nino died, things are so different,” Alito told Rosen, using a nickname for Scalia reserved for close friends and family. “I so often wish he were still here. He started so much and it would have been good to have him around to see it to completion.”

The Daily Beast has reached out to the Supreme Court for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/conservative-scotus-justice-samuel-alito-makes-eyebrow-raising-remark-about-colleague-antonin-scalia/?

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😡 SCOTUS rancor hits fever pitch

Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios Supreme Court justices are breaking from their usual discreet decorum and openly trading barbs, Axios' Josephine Walker writes. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson critiqued the court's conservative justices for issuing emergency orders allowing roughly two dozen of President Trump's policies to take effect after lower courts blocked them. Sotomayor issued an extraordinary public apology to Justice Brett Kavanaugh for her "inappropriate" comments about his views in an immigration-related case. Justice Clarence Thomas slammed progressivism as an existential threat to America's founding principles in a speech this week, adding that "cynicism, rejection, hostility and animus" grip America. 🔮 What's coming: The conservative-majority court still has to decide landmark cases on voting rights, birthright citizenship and executive powers of the president — cases that could redefine American life for generations.

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SCOTUS Justice Melts Down at Colleague’s ‘Insulting’ Criticism

The exchange comes as disagreements between the court’s liberal and conservative blocs have become more public—and more personal.

Conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito raged at his liberal colleague’s “baseless and insulting” dissent in an unusual ruling that speeds up the timeline of a decision benefitting Republicans. Normally, the parties in a Supreme Court case must wait 32 days for a ruling to be certified and sent back to a lower court. But on Monday, the court’s conservative justices granted an extraordinary request from Louisiana Republicans, allowing them to immediately take advantage of last week’s ruling gutting the Civil Rights Act, as they seek to eliminate the state’s two majority-Black congressional districts in time for November’s midterm elections.

In her dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson blasted the court’s decision to upend its default procedures and “facilitate Louisiana’s midstream redistricting rush,” despite primary ballots having already gone out to military and overseas voters.

Normally, the court frowns upon last-minute changes to election procedures, but in this case, it “dives into the fray” in a way that’s “unwarranted and unwise,” she wrote.

In a concurring decision, Alito fumed that Jackson’s dissent had accused the majority of “an unprincipled use of power,” which he claimed was “baseless and insulting” as well as “a groundless and utterly irresponsible charge.”

“The dissent accuses the Court of ‘unshackling’ itself from ‘constraints.’ It is the dissent’s rhetoric that lacks restraint,” he fumed.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch signed to the concurrence.

In her dissent, Jackson pointed out that the court had waived the 32-day rule just twice in the last 25 years.

“The Court’s decision to buck our usual practice… is tantamount to an approval of Louisiana’s rush to pause the ongoing election in order to pass a new map,” she wrote.

The original case, Callais v. Louisiana, struck down Louisiana’s political map and set off a rush across the South to overturn maps that had been drawn to comply with the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights-era law restricting racial gerrymandering and racial discrimination in voting in former Jim Crow states.

But it didn’t address the legal and political questions involved in suspending an ongoing election, Jackson wrote in her dissent.

She and liberal colleagues, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, joined a fiery dissent in the Callais case, with Kagan writing that the ruling represented the “latest chapter in the majority’s now-completed demolition” of the VRA.

Neither Kagan nor Sotomayor, however, signed on Jackson’s dissent in Monday’s decision.

The angry written exchange between Jackson and Alito comes as the disagreements between the court’s liberal and conservative blocs have become more frequent, more public, and more personal.

Both Jackson and Sotomayor have spoken out against the court’s reliance on the so-called shadow docket, which has allowed Trump to continue implementing his agenda even as lower courts have ruled his policies are unconstitutional.

Last month, Sotomayor also accused Kavanaugh of being out of touch with reality after he wrote in a concurrence that immigration agents could target people based on a combination of factors, including their race, language, and where they worked.

She later apologized for saying that her colleague—who lives in a $1.6million home in affluent Chevy Chase, Maryland—probably doesn’t know any hourly workers, and doesn’t realize that even if those stops are temporary, they can mean the difference between a parent being able to put food on the table that night or not.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/scotus-justice-samuel-alito-melts-down-at-colleague-ketanji-brown-jacksons-insulting-criticism/?