Newly released audio reveals that conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito disparaged ProPublica’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of ethical issues on the court as trying to “make something out” of “any little thing they can find.”
The recording was captured by Ally Sammarco, a colleague of liberal documentary filmmaker Lauren Windsor, at a June 3 event hosted by the Supreme Court Historical Society. Windsor initially provided the audio to Rolling Stone and later shared it on social media Tuesday.
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In the audio, Sammarco approaches Alito, flatters him as an “American hero,” and asks him what he thinks of the “undeserved” media criticism he’s faced.
Alito begins with a relatively tepid response, saying, “They don’t like our decisions, and they don’t like how they anticipate we may decide some cases that are coming up. That’s the beginning of the end of it.”
Then he elaborates.
“There are groups that are very well-funded by ideological groups that have spearheaded these attacks. That’s what it is,” he says.
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Asked for specifics, Alito began skewering ProPublica, a non-profit investigative media outlet.
“ProPublica gets a lot of money, and they have spent a fortune investigating Clarence Thomas, for example. You know, everything he’s ever done in his entire life.
“They’ve done some of that to me, too,” he added. “They look for any little thing they can find, and they try to make something out of it.”
ProPublica won a Pulitzer last month for its “Friends of the Court” series, which uncovered several expensive gifts Alito and Thomas, another conservative justice on the court, received from billionaires.
The reporting included the revelation that Thomas had received hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of travel and vacations from billionaire Texas businessman Harlan Crow. And Alito flew on a private jet paid for by billionaire financier Paul Singer during a 2008 Alaska vacation, ProPublica also found.
Other recordings made by Windsor at the same June 3 event reveal Alito saying “one side or the other is going to win” in the political rift between the left and the right. Windsor also recorded Alito agreeing with her when she said the country needed to “return our country to a place of godliness.”
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Alito has also come under fire recently after The New York Times revealed flags associated with the Capitol rioters had been flown at his home shortly after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. He has rejected calls to recuse himself from cases involving the rioters and Trump’s election interference charges.
