Payments to Rajan Vasisht, an aide from 2019-21, underscore ties between the justice and lawyers who argue cases in front of him
It’s crazy how all these institutions lost all their prestige and respects.
I mean the payment descriptions are probably something like “Def not a bribe.” There’s nothing that can be done.
To be honest, I bet the descriptions are all set to Public and say “For Case #AXK-20100427PartB”.
Painter said he would possibly make an exception if recent law clerks were paying their own way for a party. But almost all of the lawyers who made the payments are senior litigators at big law firms. Kedric Payne, the general counsel and senior director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center, said that – based on available information – it was possible that the former clerks were paying their own party expenses, and not expenses for Thomas, which he believed was different than random lawyers in effect paying admission to an exclusive event to influence the judge. He added: “But the point remains that the public is owed an explanation so they don’t have to speculate.”
This is a tough one. While I have great disdain for the abuses of the court recently, there’s no telling of this was money to split a bottle of booze or something more nefarious. These men all used to work together, so it would be perfectly normal to contribute to a party.
The fact that there is no easy, public explanation from a public figure is why it’s worrying.
As a former executive branch employee, the required ethics training is clear: the appearance of a conflict of interest is just as severe as an actual conflict of interest and we were counselled to avoid both at all cost. If that means it is inconvenient for you or a contractor, that’s too bad because impropriety in government dealings is unacceptable.
This is codified in many areas, such as any employee - up to and including the president iirc - not being allowed to accept gives or honoraria above a fairly low financial threshold.
Jfc I am underestimating how dumb these people are. Guess Monero is still extremely underpriced.
The supreme court is illegitimate.
