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PREVIOUSLY: Justice Samuel Alito Took Luxury Fishing Vacation With GOP Billionaire Who Later Had Cases Before the Court — With Help From Eureka’s Rob Arkley

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On the heels of last month’s bombshell investigative story from ProPublica, which revealed that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito accepted and failed to disclose lavish gifts from Republican donors, a pair of powerful U.S. Senators is asking occasional Eureka resident Robin Arkley II and other donors to submit itemized lists of gifts they’ve bestowed on justices of the Supreme Court.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who is chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, authored the letters. The Judiciary Committee is currently considering legislation aimed at strengthening the ethics rules and standards that apply to the Court.

If you missed the ProPublica story, by all means, go back and give it a read. It detailed a luxury Alaskan fishing vacation that Justice Alito took in 2008. The trip was planned and attended by conservative activist Leonard Leo, and the VIP guests reportedly stayed for free at a luxury fishing lodge owned by Arkley.

The ProPublica story also found that Arkley gave valuable freebies, including lodging and a trip to Kodiak Island on his private jet, to Justice Antonin Scalia, who also failed to disclose the gifts. Arkley attended that particular trip, according to the story.

In the letter to Arkley, which you can download via a link at the bottom of this post, the senators also ask Arkley for:

An account of how you came to provide Justice Alito with a gift of free lodging in July 2008, including who invited Justice Alito, when you learned of that invitation, when you learned that you would be attending the trip to Alaska, and the names of other attendees.

The Outpost sent an email to Arkley seeking comment. We’ll update this post if we hear back from him.

In the meantime, below is a press release from Senator Whitehouse’s office:

Washington, DC – Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, today announced that they sent three letters seeking information from Leonard Leo and two right-wing billionaires implicated in recent reporting on the Supreme Court’s ethics crisis.  The senators are seeking to identify the full extent of payments or gifts of travel and lodging given to Supreme Court justices as the Committee considers legislation to fortify ethics rules and standards at the Court.

“To date, Chief Justice Roberts has barely acknowledged, much less investigated or sought to fix, the ethics crises swirling around our highest Court.  So if the Court won’t investigate or act, Congress must.  Answers to these questions will help the Committee’s work to create reliable ethics guardrails at the Court, under Congress’s clearly established oversight and legislative authority,” said Whitehouse and Durbin in a joint statement.

The letters follow a bombshell report by ProPublica last month that found Justice Samuel Alito accepted and failed to disclose a luxury Alaskan fishing vacation with Republican billionaires Paul Singer and Robin Arkley II.  According to the report, Justice Alito’s billionaire-funded vacation was planned and attended by Leonard Leo.  Leo is the orchestrator of right-wing influence campaigns around the Supreme Court.  A subsequent New York Times report raises to six the number of right-wing billionaires that have provided services and benefits to Justices Clarence Thomas and Alito.   

The senators’ letters are the latest in a longstanding oversight effort by Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats to ensure transparency and accountability at the Supreme Court and in the federal judiciary.  On Monday, Whitehouse and Durbin announced that the Committee will mark up Whitehouse’s Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency (SCERT) Act on Thursday, July 20.  The bill would require Supreme Court justices to adopt a code of conduct, create a mechanism to investigate alleged violations of the code of conduct and other laws, improve disclosure and transparency when a justice has a connection to a party or amicus before the Court, and require justices to explain their recusal decisions to the public.

Congress has an appropriate and well-established role in oversight of the judiciary and updating ethics laws that apply to federal officials, including justices and judges.  Congress passed the Ethics in Government Act, which the justices are subject to, and created through statute the Judicial Conference, which administers that law.

The senators’ letter to Singer can be found here, the letter to Arkley can be found here, and the letter to Leo can be found here.

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DOCUMENT: Letter to Arkley