Alito runs to WSJ to get ahead of ProPublica story on GOP billionaire-sponsored Alaskan fishing trip, but the justice revealed the trip himself long ago

Samuel Alito

Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito speaks during the Federalist Society’s 40th Anniversary at Union Station in Washington, Monday, Nov. 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Rather than commenting on the record to the source of recent exposés on his conservative colleague Justice Clarence Thomas’ GOP billionaire-sponsored luxury yacht trips, Justice Samuel Alito penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on to say that there was nothing to see in a forthcoming story about a 2008 Alaskan fishing trip.

Alito preempted the publication of “Justice Samuel Alito Took Luxury Fishing Vacation With GOP Billionaire Who Later Had Cases Before the Court” with the op-ed after being given the weekend to respond a series of questions about taking a private jet to Alaska in 2008 on the dime of Elliott Management hedge fund billionaire and GOP donor Paul Singer, chairman at the Manhattan Institute — an influential conservative policy think tank — friend of the Federalist Society, and so-called “vulture capitalist.”

The crux of the ProPublica story is this:

ProPublica’s investigation sheds new light on how luxury travel has given prominent political donors — including one who has had cases before the Supreme Court — intimate access to the most powerful judges in the country. Another wealthy businessman provided expensive vacations to two members of the high court, ProPublica found. On his Alaska trip, Alito stayed at a commercial fishing lodge owned by this businessman, who was also a major conservative donor. Three years before, that same businessman flew Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016, on a private jet to Alaska and paid the bill for his stay.

The story, noting that the Alaska private jet flight “could have exceeded $100,000 one way,” said that Singer went on six years later to reap a $2.4 billion windfall when the Supreme Court ruled in his favor in a Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act case stylized as Republic of Argentina v. NML Capital.

That case involved a subsidiary of Singer’s Elliot Management, but according to ProPublica, “In the years that followed, Singer’s hedge fund came before the court at least 10 times in cases where his role was often covered by the legal press and mainstream media.”

As far as the Republic of Argentina v. NML Capital case is concerned, the decision was 7-1, with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the lone dissenter and Justice Sonia Sotomayor not participating. Alito did not do any writing. That was left to Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the opinion for a majority that included Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Anthony Kennedy, Justice Stephen Breyer, and Justice Elena Kagan.

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