Team,

Last week, I sat next to Chief Justice Roberts in the grand Supreme Court reception room, and addressed the Judicial Conference – the policymaking body for federal courts – about the ethics issues at the Supreme Court. I don’t publicize what I say there, but I can tell you that at the last six meetings I’ve continually raised this topic, to an increasingly warm and interested response.

The results are coming in. Justice Scalia had a trick where an intermediary would wangle a “personal invitation” for him to a hunting resort, and Scalia would pretend that made it “personal hospitality” that did not need to be disclosed, even if he’d never met the resort owner. The Judicial Conference blew that trick to smithereens.

The creepy billionaires instruct their chosen justices how to rule through “amicus briefs,” filed in little flotillas by groups who don’t disclose their common donors. Think of amicus briefs as judicial lobbying. In one case, an entity filed a brief under a “fictitious name”; in another, a 501c3 nonprofit entity was the petitioner, and the amicus flotilla failed to disclose funding from the 501c3’s own 501c4 counterpart organization. The Judicial Conference has announced it’s working to clean that scheme up.

In the “Scalia trick” matter, Justice Thomas instantly claimed it was a new rule, though the Conference had called it a “clarification.” It’s a big difference: if it was a clarification, Thomas (and Alito) would have to go back and clean up years of false filings. The Conference is looking into that, too, and it could be a big deal if justices have to reveal past gifts.

This is just to let you know that in addition to my legislative and investigative work on clean-up at the Supreme Court, I’m making progress in this unexpected forum. Separately, I had a red state federal Circuit Court of Appeals judge grasp my arm at an event and tell me how important this all was – “don’t let up” was his message. I won’t.

Thanks for your support as I persist in getting this done.

Sheldon Whitehouse

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