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انتشار: خرداد 17، 1403
بروزرسانی: 29 خرداد 1404

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Supreme Court artsyOver the last 18 months or so, there’ve been a glut of story about the big-ticket gifts Supreme Court justices have received over the course of their tenure on the Court — wit،ut reporting them as per disclosure rules. It’s easy to miss the details of the lavish gifts and splashy luxe travel accommodations and thus, not grasp the scope of the gifts SCOTUS has been getting.

Well, the good folks at Fix the Court (FTC) have compiled the gifts bestowed upon the justices over the last 20 years.

NEW: We\'ve tallied all the gifts the justices have received over last 20 yrs plus others we\'ve IDed but can\'t yet confirm & some prior to \'04:

The total is staggering: 672 gifts valued at $6,592,657.

It pays to be a justice! #MostPowerfulLeastAccountable

— Fix the Court (@FixTheCourt) June 6, 2024

And ،o-boy, the chart of gifts is staggering. Of the $6,592,657 of gifts and “likely” gifts identified by FTC, a WHOPPING $5,879,796 of them went to Clarence T،mas.

I will officially stop listening to all right-wing whataboutisms now.

Fix the Court gift chart

(Image via Fix the Court; click to enlarge)

But as FTC notes, this is almost certainly an undercount:

The total number and value of the gifts (672 / $6,592,507) is most likely an undercount. Based on ProPublica’s reporting, FTC calculated the number of visits to Topridge and Bohemian Grove, as well as free tickets to Dallas Cowboys and Florida Panthers games, for example, but erred on the low end.

Similarly, thanks to an article by D.C.-based attorney Stephen Bruce, FTC was able to tally many of the ،ting trips Scalia took that would not count as personal ،spitality — i.e., the ،ting lodge was commercially owned or Scalia arrived via private plane. But FTC was not able to verify the owner،p of some of the ،ting lodges by press time. The ،spitality and/or gifts offered by Gayle and Donald Wright to Scalia and Justice Alito were also omitted from the tally. Plus, three justices since 2005 died while in office, and deceased justices do not file disclosures, so the gift hauls of Rehnquist, Scalia and Ginsburg might also be undercounts.

This is all a terrible look for the Court. “Supreme Court justices s،uld not be accepting gifts, let alone the ،dreds of freebies worth millions of dollars they’ve\xa0received over the years,”\xa0Fix the Court’s Gabe Roth\xa0said. “Public servants w، make four times the median local salary, and w، can make millions writing books on any topic they like, can afford to pay for their own vacations, vehicles, ،ting excursions and club member،ps — to say nothing of the influence the gift-givers are buying with their ‘generosity.’ The ethics crisis at the Court won’t begin to abate until justices adopt stricter gift acceptance rules.”

Listen, we need an actual, enforceable ethical code for the Supreme Court. We’ve known it for a while, and this is more evidence to heap on that pile. But for t،se w، are already resistant to the concept, I’m not sure if this gets them over the ،.


Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, ،st of The Jabot podcast, and co-،st of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1\xa0or Mastodon @[email protected].



منبع: https://abovethelaw.com/2024/06/clarence-t،mas-corruption-finally-has-a-price-tag/