The Wall Street Journal has come under fire for allowing Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito to pen a defensive op-ed amid scrutiny on an undisclosed luxury fishing trip taken with a prominent conservative donor.
The right-wing justice preemptively wrote the op-ed denying wrongdoing before an investigation into his conduct was released by ProPublica.
That investigation stated that Justice Alito in 2008 flew on the private jet of billionaire Paul Singer to Alaska’s King Salmon Lodge on the fishing trip.
Six years later the justice ruled with a majority of justices in favour of Mr Singer’s hedge fund in a case against Argentina, ProPublica reported.
In his Wall Street Journal op-ed, Justice Alito argued that he had “no obligation” to recuse himself from any cases involving Mr Singer’s companies.
“He allowed me to occupy what would have otherwise been an unoccupied seat on a private flight to Alaska,” Justice Alito wrote. “It was and is my judgment that these facts would not cause a reasonable and unbiased person to doubt my ability to decide the matters in question impartially.”
Dom Moynihan, a policy professor at Georgetown University in Washington DC, tweeted that Justice Alito’s defence had “simply broken my brain.”
“That Alito wrote this and the WSJ published it,” he tweeted. “Alito’s logic implies if you call up an airline, and they have an empty seat on a route you are traveling, the presumed value of that seat is zero dollars. This guy is a SCOTUS judge!”
And he added: “Alito just walking into a shoe store, grabbing whatever he wants, and running out without paying because no-one was occupying the shoes when he got there.’Textual legalism’ he screams as he sprints away.”
And people were also quick to point out that the Wall Street Journal was also the outlet that obtained Justice Alito’s leaked draft opinion in Dobbs vs Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which ended Roe v Wade.
“The Wall Street Journal editorial board has long seemed to have a source inside the Supreme Court. Unrelatedly, Sam Alito knew exactly who would publish his angry screed prebutting a ProPublica story that hasn’t even run yet,” tweeted Brian Beutler of Crooked Media.
And Democratic strategist Joe Trippi added: “As a friend reminds me. Someone leaked the Dobbs decision to the Wall Street Journal. Looks like we now know who leaked it.”
MSNBC executive producer Kyle Griffin also weighed in, tweeting, “The Wall Street Journal opinion page gave Alito an unchecked platform to defend himself without question or pushback.”
