Alito Reports $900 Tickets, a Loan, No Trips in Disclosure (1)

US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito reported in a new financial disclosure that he took no trips in 2023 paid for by another person or organization, but revealed he failed for years to report a loan and did accept concert tickets from a German socialite.

The federal judiciary released Alito’s report on Friday after he requested an extension. The justice disclosed that he had “inadvertently omitted” a loan from financial firm Edward Jones for several years. The loan was initially valued between $250,001 to $500,000, and then steadily decreased until last year, when it was worth less than $15,000, he reported.

Gloria von Thurn und Taxis

Photographer: Isa Foltin/German Select via Getty Images

Alito’s latest report showed that he accepted $900 concert tickets as a gift from Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, but didn’t disclose the performer. The German princess — who had the nickname “Princess TNT” in the 1980s, according to Vanity Fair — has received attention in more recent years for her support for conservative Catholic causes.

Court watchdog group Fix the Court reported in 2019 that the princess met with Alito and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, along with the head of a conservative organization that had filed a friend-of-court brief in an LGBTQ employment discrimination case.

A court spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Alito was the only justice who requested a 90-day extension on his 2023 financial disclosure. The filing comes after a year of Supreme Court ethics controversies, including heightened scrutiny of Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas’ relationships with billionaire benefactors.

Samuel Alito

Photographer: Eric Lee/Bloomberg

In last year’s filing, Alito declined to disclose details about a trip with hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, who paid for private travel for Alito in 2008, according to a report from ProPublica. Alito said last summer that he didn’t have to disclose that trip under the court’s rules at the time.

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Thomas this year disclosed that Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow paid for his travel expenses for several trips, including a cruise in Indonesia aboard Crow’s yacht and a trip with Crow to an exclusive California retreat for men. Thomas also included details about previous trips in last year’s financial disclosure.

Alito did not report earning any outside income in 2023, a departure from previous years when he was paid for teaching at law schools.

The justice’s filing shows he continues to own stock in more than two dozen individual companies. He is the only justice with significant company holdings. The others are mostly invested in mutual funds.

Alito’s holdings include 3M Co., Abbott Laboratories, AbbVie Inc., Boeing Co., Caterpillar Inc., Dow Inc., and Procter & Gamble Co.

Alito’s annual report notes transactions over the past year that he previously disclosed in interim filings. They included his exchange of Johnson & Johnson shares for stock in Kenvue Inc., a former subsidiary of J&J that was spun off. He also sold shares of beer giant Anheuser-Busch InBev SA, and purchased rival Molson Coors Beverage Co. The beer trades took place around the time of a conservative-led boycott of the Bud Light maker over a promotional marketing partnership with a transgender social media influencer.

Alito faced criticism over the past year when he declined to recuse himself from a pair of cases involving the 2020 presidential election. Democratic lawmakers asked him to do so after the New York Times reported that flags associated with election deniers were flown in front of two of his homes. He later said his wife flew the flags and he didn’t know they were associated with the election.

(Adds stocks Alito owns in 11th paragraph. An earlier version corrected the spelling of name in third paragraph.)

To contact the reporters on this story:
Emily Birnbaum in Washington at ebirnbaum3@bloomberg.net;
Zoe Tillman in Washington at ztillman2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net

Peter Blumberg, Elizabeth Wasserman

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