Conservative legal activist Leonard Leo is refusing to provide Democratic lawmakers with information regarding his interactions with Justice Samuel Alito, who attended a luxury fishing trip with him in 2008 and took a ride on a private jet owned by a conservative hedge fund manager.
In a scathing letter Tuesday to key Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Leo’s lawyer said the congressional inquiry “exceeds the limits placed by the Constitution on the Committee’s investigative authority” and is tainted by partisan politics. ProPublica first reported the trip, which Alito did not include on his financial disclosure forms.
“By selectively targeting Mr. Leo for investigation on a politically charged basis, while ignoring other potential sources of information on the asserted topic of interest who are similarly situated to Mr. Leo but have different political views that are more consistent with those of the Committee majority, your inquiry appears to be political retaliation against a private citizen in violation of the First Amendment,” the lawyer, David B. Rivkin Jr., wrote.
Rivkin was responding to a July 11 letter, penned by Committee Chairman Dick Durbin of Illinois and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, asking Leo to provide more information about the trip.
Leo, co-chairman of the Federalist Society, is a longtime player in conservative judicial circles.
A spokesperson for Durbin declined to comment. CNN also has reached out to Whitehouse for comment.
The committee is investigating ethics standards at the Supreme Court as a part of its oversight efforts after an array of stories have been published raising questions of transparency at the Supreme Court. In a statement accompanying the letter earlier this month, Durbin said that “answers to these questions will help the Committee’s work to create…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply