After years of increased scrutiny of Supreme Court justices’ off-the-bench activities, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. reported in his annual financial disclosure report released on Tuesday that he received no gifts and took a single trip to Ohio last year to deliver a commencement address.
As in past years, Justice Alito reported owning stock in more than two dozen individual companies, including Boeing, ConocoPhillips and Molson Coors.
The filing was made public two months after those of his colleagues because Justice Alito requested an extension, as he has done in previous years.
Under federal ethics law, the nine justices and other high-level government officials are required to file annual reports listing their outside income, gifts, investments and sources of any income their spouses receive so that the public can evaluate potential conflicts of interest.
The justices’ financial reports and activities beyond the Supreme Court have been closely examined in recent years after news reports that some justices had failed to disclose lavish travel, high-end gifts and other transactions with potential conflicts of interest.
Justice Alito reported that he continued to hold honorary unpaid positions at the Bolch Judicial Institute of Duke Law School and the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land.
There was no mention in the filing of Justice Alito’s recently reported deal to publish in 2026, his first book since joining the bench. The justice has signed with Basic Liberty, a conservative imprint of Basic Books Group, according to the publisher, which declined to provide additional details about the project.
The annual salary for the associate justices is currently $303,600; the chief justice earns $317,500. The court’s rules also allow the justices to earn some outside income but caps the amount at $33,000. There are no limits, however, on book payments. Several justices have recently signed lucrative deals with publishers.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson reported receiving nearly $3 million from Penguin Random House for her memoir, “Lovely One.” Justice Amy Coney Barrett has a reported $2 million deal with a Penguin Random House imprint for her legal memoir, “Listening to the Law,” scheduled for publication in September.
In his report on Tuesday, Justice Alito’s only reimbursement was for lodging and meals when he delivered remarks in May 2024 at the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio, a Catholic institution. The justice received a standing ovation after he was introduced as the author of the majority opinion in 2022 that eliminated the constitutional right to abortion by overturning Roe v. Wade.
During the speech, Justice Alito warned that freedom of speech and freedom of religion were under attack.
“It’s rough out there,” he said. “And, in fact, I think it is rougher out there right now than it has been for quite some time.”
Under pressure from Democrats in Congress and transparency advocates, the Supreme Court in 2023 announced an ethics policy specific to the nine justices. Congress separately passed legislation requiring justices and federal judges to publicly report their stock sales and purchases.
Justice Alito and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. are now the only sitting justices who own stocks in individual companies.
Gabe Roth, the executive director of Fix the Court, an advocacy group that pushed for more financial transparency from the justices, has pressed them to divest from individual companies to avoid having to recuse from cases and leave open the possibility of a 4-4 tie.
“You want a full bench as often as possible,” Mr. Roth said. “When you have corporate interests in major litigation, it’s important in my view to try to divest from those interests so you can participate in those cases.”
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