Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was secretly recorded discussing the media’s coverage of him and his colleagues, accusing outlets of being funded by “ideological groups that have spearheaded these attacks.”
On June 3, Lauren Windsor, a liberal documentary filmmaker, recorded the associate justice at an event hosted by the Supreme Court Historical Society. She and colleague Ally Sammarco approached Alito, calling him an “American hero,” and asked why he thought the Supreme Court was “being so attacked and being so targeted by the media these days.”
In the audio recording, first published by Rolling Stone, Alito can be heard responding: “They don’t like our decisions, and they don’t like how they anticipate we may decide some cases that are coming up. That’s the beginning of the end of it.
“There are groups that are very well-funded by ideological groups that have spearheaded these attacks. That’s what it is.”
When asked which groups, Alito named ProPublica—an independent, nonprofit newsroom that won a Pulitzer Prize in May for its reporting on the court, which the prize’s judges said showed “how a small group of politically influential billionaires wooed justices with lavish gifts and travel.”
Newsweek has contacted ProPublica by email and Alito via the Supreme Court’s Public Information Office for comment.
Among ProPublica’s findings was that Justice Clarence Thomas had failed to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of vacations and gifts from billionaire Harlan Crow.
After the outlet’s report, Thomas amended his financial disclosure to include two paid vacations, a trip on a private jet and a real estate deal.
At the time, Thomas’ attorney said the omissions from his initial disclosure were simply “reporting errors” that were “strictly inadvertent.”
In the audio recording, Alito said: “ProPublica gets a lot of money, and they have spent a fortune investigating Clarence Thomas, for example. You know, everything he’s ever done in his entire life. And they’ve done some of that to me, too. They look for any little thing they can find, and they try to make something out of it.”
In a statement to Rolling Stone, a ProPublica spokesperson responded to Alito’s comments, saying: “ProPublica exposes abuses of power no matter which party is in charge and our newsroom operates with fierce independence.
“No donors are made aware of stories before they are published, nor do they have a say as to which stories reporters pursue.
“The fact that Clarence Thomas amended his past filings to formally disclose trips that were paid for by billionaire Harlan Crow speaks for itself.”
Uncommon Knowledge
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