Supreme Court Struggle to Spot Conflict Laid Bare in Alito Trip

New revelations about travel gifted to US Supreme Court justices highlight the tension between rules intended to ensure impartiality and the difficulty in sussing out conflicts.

Justice Samuel Alito is the target of ProPublica’s most recent reporting, which found he took a 2008 Alaska fishing trip with billionaire Paul Singer and didn’t recuse himself in a 2014 case involving his hedge fund.

But corporate disclosure rules aimed at parties in an appeal aren’t designed to get at personal conflicts of interest like the allegation around Alito and Singer, said Hogan Lovell’s Sean Marotta. Instead they are intended to flag financial ...