More Shoes Dropping

Samuel Alito's ritzy fishing trip to Alaska back in 2008 is another example of the captured court. Similarly, Josh Marshall today on Talking Points Memo speculated that each right-wing member of the court is automatically assigned a billionaire sponsor by Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society. It appears that Alito's is Paul Singer.

Last night, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse tweeted a series of thoughts about Alito's misdeeds, from the very existence of his "prebuttal" in the Wall Street Journal to the details of what he claimed about his Alaska trip.

I haven't seen Whitehouse's points mentioned much, so I thought I would quote them here:

Oh, my, the questions:

First, who orchestrated this weird pre-buttal ..., and did Alito get help from a PR firm?

If so, who paid?

Second, why dwell on the term “facility” but not mention that the “personal hospitality” reporting exemption is specifically limited only to “food, lodging and entertainment”?

Failing to mention that other part of the rule wouldn’t fly in most courts.

And seriously, who in real life calls a plane a “facility”?

Maybe the airport, maybe the hangar, but the plane? Been flying all my life and never once heard that term used.

And who goes on a fishing trip for the accommodations?

Don’t people go on fishing trips for the fishing? Isn’t that the real gift value at issue here?

Did Alito really jet to Alaska to spend time in the hotel? Did he fish in the tub?

Please.

Third, why not ask the Financial Disclosure Committee of the Judicial Conference, the body set up exactly for that purpose, for its advice on what should be disclosed? That’s why it’s there.

And what, he just happened to be flying to Alaska and there just happened to be a private jet going to Alaska with an empty seat, and he just happened to find that out, like on some weird billionaire shared-ride Uber?

Oh, and would that “empty seat” trick fly with legislative or executive ethics disclosures? (Hint:  no.) And how about with the Financial Disclosure Committee? (Right, you didn’t ask.)

This just keeps getting worse.

On All In With Chris Hayes, anti-corruption law professor Zephyr Teachout tonight just said:

We're talking about a move from "With great power comes great responsibility" to Justice Roberts basically saying, "With great power comes great immunity... We are too powerful to be subject to these rules." It's outrageous but I think this is a moment for the public to recognize that we can't go on like this.