If you thought the stench of corruption on the Supreme Court began and ended with conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, Politico has got some news for you: there’s way more where that came from.
Now, the stench has attached itself to conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch as well:
NEW — Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch sold a 40-acre tract of property he co-owned in rural Granby, Colorado to the chief executive of Greenberg Traurig, a major law firm with business before the court.
Major scoop from @HeidiReports https://t.co/JUOWsrUefF
— Sam Stein (@samstein) April 25, 2023
MaJoR sCoOp!
“Gorsuch did not disclose the identity of the purchaser. That box was left blank.” https://t.co/vmxULZCEYS
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) April 25, 2023
Nine days after Gorsuch was appointed to the Supreme Court, the head of Greenberg Traurig—a major law firm that’s before the Court all the time—bought land he’d been trying to sell for two years. Gorsuch did not report the identity of the purchaser. https://t.co/P4WH4VNnps
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) April 25, 2023
Looks like Politico’s got Neil Gorsuch dead to rights, huh?
New Supreme Court Ethics Scandal Just Dropped! https://t.co/ZWiCttqJoA pic.twitter.com/uclGtbJ9e5
— Jezebel (@Jezebel) April 25, 2023
🚨 OUTRAGEOUS: Justice Neil Gorsuch FAILED to properly report a real estate sale to the CEO of law firm with cases before Supreme Court.
After nearly two years of finding no buyers, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch found a buyer for his 40-acre co-owned tract of property in… pic.twitter.com/mBvC3GlDcm
— CALL TO ACTIVISM (@CalltoActivism) April 25, 2023
“The Supreme Court justice did not report the identity of the purchaser, whose firm has had numerous cases before the court.”
Corruption on the high court MUST be addressed or our laws are meaningless. https://t.co/AGTc68tG69
— CALL TO ACTIVISM (@CalltoActivism) April 25, 2023
It’s almost like they all have something in common … oh right! The corruption! https://t.co/AKQPXj9piG
— Sophia Bush Hughes (@SophiaBush) April 25, 2023
It’s almost as if the people screeching about how Neil Gorsuch is corrupt all have something in common … oh right! The ignorance and intellectual laziness!
Is this supposed to be journalism?
— Justin Pauley (@JustinPauley2) April 25, 2023
It’s supposed to be, yes. But best Politico can muster is journamalism.
Recommended
More from Politico’s MaJoR sCoOp:
Supreme Court rules do not prevent justices from engaging in financial transactions with people with interest in court decisions, but Gorsuch’s dealings with Duffy expose the weakness of the court’s disclosure procedures. For instance, in reporting his Colorado income, Gorsuch listed as his source only the name that he and his two co-owners gave themselves, Walden Group, LLC. The report didn’t indicate that there had been a real estate sale or a purchaser.
Such a sale would raise ethical problems for officials serving in many other branches of government, but the Supreme Court sets its own rules. It has largely left justices to make their own decisions about when and how to report outside gifts and income.
…
The code of conduct for lower court U.S. judges says judges should “avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all activities,” and “discourages frequent transactions or continuing business relationships with lawyers or other persons likely to come before the court” on which the judge serves. Unlike many of the country’s state and federal courts, the Supreme Court lacks a code of conduct.The code of conduct for lower court U.S. judges says judges should “avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all activities,” and “discourages frequent transactions or continuing business relationships with lawyers or other persons likely to come before the court” on which the judge serves. Unlike many of the country’s state and federal courts, the Supreme Court lacks a code of conduct.
“This is exactly the type of situation that an ethics code that included vetting of transactions and full disclosure would clear up,” said Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US, a progressive research organization. “Without decisive action, the conservatives on the Supreme Court will forever tarnish its reputation in our public life,” he said.
Do you get the feeling that Politico’s trying really, really hard to make this into a big deal when it’s anything but? Good. Go with that feeling. Because it’s the correct one. We’re gonna turn things over to tweeter @CrownMaybe for a little bit so he can explain why:
So, being a lawyer, I went back and Read the Rule and also looked at the actual form. I'm a bit puzzled by the reporting here, or would be except it's Politico.
Let's begin with the form. https://t.co/WsJ7o9XPy8
— (((Not That Crown, Maybe))) (@CrownMaybe) April 25, 2023
Justice Gorsuch's FY2017 disclosure (linked in the Politico piece) may be found here, courtesy of an activist group that's totally free of axes to grind:https://t.co/sh65AkeNAj
— (((Not That Crown, Maybe))) (@CrownMaybe) April 25, 2023
On Page 1, Positions, Gorsuch identifies himself as a member of Walden Group, LLC, which he identifies as an LLC that holds "mountain property."
— (((Not That Crown, Maybe))) (@CrownMaybe) April 25, 2023
This is the first weird thing: He rather explicitly identifies what the entity is and does on the very first page, but the Politico report and its preferred mouthpieces suggest he's hiding exactly that.
— (((Not That Crown, Maybe))) (@CrownMaybe) April 25, 2023
Before I go any farther, I want to do some background explaining that will be useful in a bit. It's gonna get all legal-ly and for those of you who already know this stuff, apologies.
— (((Not That Crown, Maybe))) (@CrownMaybe) April 25, 2023
Walden Group, LLC was a limited liability company. For most people, they just see a few letters after a company name and don't think much about it, but it's kind of important to what appears to be the whole story here.
— (((Not That Crown, Maybe))) (@CrownMaybe) April 25, 2023
Most — not all, it's complicated, but most — of the big company names with which we're familiar are corporations; their names end in "Inc.," or the equivalent (for "incorporated").
— (((Not That Crown, Maybe))) (@CrownMaybe) April 25, 2023
A corporation is a business organization that issues stock to its shareholders. A limited liability company is a business organization composed of members with membership interests.
— (((Not That Crown, Maybe))) (@CrownMaybe) April 25, 2023
These things don't really matter much at the taxation or day-to-day corporate level except in scale: LLCs tend to be smaller than corporations (more or less; a lot of people form small business corporations for good reasons and ignorant ones).
— (((Not That Crown, Maybe))) (@CrownMaybe) April 25, 2023
When I advise clients on forming a business, my basic advice is to create a LLC if they're gonna have 8 business partners or fewer, or if they're going to use the company for a single, discrete thing (like owning a piece of property).
— (((Not That Crown, Maybe))) (@CrownMaybe) April 25, 2023
If they're going to want to take on investors, or run a more complicated business (generally), I tell them to form a corporation.
— (((Not That Crown, Maybe))) (@CrownMaybe) April 25, 2023
Ok, so moving on, on Page 7, line 56., Gorsuch discloses that his interest in the Walden Group was sold at the end of 2017. He does not list the counterparty.
— (((Not That Crown, Maybe))) (@CrownMaybe) April 25, 2023
I want to focus in on this a bit because it's fairly important to the hatchet jo– reporting at issue. Judge Gorsuch did not own the property. An LLC of which he was a member owned and sold it.
— (((Not That Crown, Maybe))) (@CrownMaybe) April 25, 2023
The clues here are such subtle things as the disclosure that Walden Group owned Mountain Property; that he disclosed selling "Walden Group" and not property; and that the "sale" closed on December 31, 2017.
— (((Not That Crown, Maybe))) (@CrownMaybe) April 25, 2023
Swing back to the LLC stuff above. When a special purpose entity like Walden Group sells its sole asset, it usually holds the proceeds long enough to pay any debts, do an accounting, prepare distributions, etc., and then commits suicide.
— (((Not That Crown, Maybe))) (@CrownMaybe) April 25, 2023
For accounting convenience, the management of the LLC usually reports the termination of the LLC to December 31, 2017 (it saves icky tax and membership distribution calculations). Which is what happened here.
— (((Not That Crown, Maybe))) (@CrownMaybe) April 25, 2023
The report says that Gorsuch sold "Walden Group" — that is the asset identified because *that is the asset of which he owned a part* — for somewhere between a quarter and half a million dollars, and lists no counterparty.
— (((Not That Crown, Maybe))) (@CrownMaybe) April 25, 2023
The reason for this is that some states treat termination as a buyback of member shares and then suicide, and it works a lot easier for the accountant's purposes (note that the disclosure was prepared by Gorsuch's accountant).
— (((Not That Crown, Maybe))) (@CrownMaybe) April 25, 2023
So, simply, *there was no counterparty to disclose.* Had Gorsuch listed Greenberg Traurig's CEO or managing partner or however they have it set up as the counterparty, *he would have been lying under oath*.
— (((Not That Crown, Maybe))) (@CrownMaybe) April 25, 2023
Swing back to the Politico piece:
Skip past the part where the LLC is described as a "the name that he and his two co-owners gave themselves," which is either stupid, mendacious, or both, and get to this: pic.twitter.com/hLVW894baV
— (((Not That Crown, Maybe))) (@CrownMaybe) April 25, 2023
Ignore the idiotic appeal to authority at the end of that and really look closely. Nowhere in the rules or statutes does an investment in an LLC "require more details than the justice includes in his financial disclosures." Instead, Area Hack *believes* it does.
— (((Not That Crown, Maybe))) (@CrownMaybe) April 25, 2023
Then note the second paragraph, and note that "appears" is a sudden guest star, as in, "This transaction appears to also require naming the buyer."
But of course, the transaction requires nothing of the sort, hence "appears."
— (((Not That Crown, Maybe))) (@CrownMaybe) April 25, 2023
Lawyers live inside of shades of gray and constantly try to show that it's really pitch-black where we are. We know our own, and this is sophistic BS. The transaction *had no counterparties to list.* There was therefore no requirement to list them.
— (((Not That Crown, Maybe))) (@CrownMaybe) April 25, 2023
The better argument, a bit more nuanced but much more convincing, is that this sort of thing can serve as an oblique way to cover corruption very easily, and the forms should be modified to account for that.
— (((Not That Crown, Maybe))) (@CrownMaybe) April 25, 2023
A weaker but still better than Politico's piece argument would be that Justice Gorsuch had an obligation to describe the entire transaction from SPE sale to SPE wind-down, precisely because a LLC is closely-held; he was selling something he owned a lot of, and not F500 stock.
— (((Not That Crown, Maybe))) (@CrownMaybe) April 25, 2023
But as written, this is worse than nonsense: It skims along the edge of libel while taking advantage of the fact that somewhere between half and 90 percent of its readers wouldn't know why it's BS on stilts.
— (((Not That Crown, Maybe))) (@CrownMaybe) April 25, 2023
TL;DR: Neil Gorsuch did nothing wrong and Politico’s MaJoR sCoOp is total BS.
He did report it.
This is a nothingburger. The fact the Left is reaching this hard shows how weak their argument is. https://t.co/WsOs3LreyL
— Pradheep J. Shanker (@Neoavatara) April 25, 2023
They want to open pandora's box? Let's discuss Biden family business, again.
— The Packman (@adpackman) April 25, 2023
Yes, let's.
— Akiva Cohen (@AkivaMCohen) April 25, 2023
Independent prosecutor for all of it.
I'm game.
— Pradheep J. Shanker (@Neoavatara) April 25, 2023
Folks who are so sure that the conservative SCOTUS justices are corrupt also somehow believe that lifelong politician Biden has no skeletons in his closet.
— Fusilli Spock (@awstar11) April 25, 2023
Hunter Biden may actually be living in one of Joe Biden’s closets in the White House. And good luck finding a bigger Biden skeleton than Hunter.
Another garbage hit job. Gorsuch disclosed the amount of sale, never met the the purchaser/has no relationship with him, and the purchaser is a max Democrat donor to Clinton and Gillibrand. https://t.co/bu5gz54n6V
— Garrett Ventry (@GarrettVentry) April 25, 2023
At the time of the sale, Duffy had headed Greenberg Traurig for about a year. A search of his contributions to political candidates revealed that they went primarily to Democrats, including Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, (D-N.Y.). He contributed the maximum amount allowable for individual donors to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, though he also made contributions in the past to Republicans such as former Sen. John McCain of Arizona and a GOP New York City mayoral candidate, Joe Lhota.
Womp-womp.
Just idiotic stuff: "Gorsuch and his associates purchased the property in 2005 through their LLC, the Walden Group, which was dissolved after the 2017 sale. The home was originally listed, in July of 2015, for $2.495 million."
Home was listed 2 years before NMG named to SCOTUS.
— Garrett Ventry (@GarrettVentry) April 25, 2023
"Since then, Greenberg Traurig has been involved in at least 22 cases before or presented to the court, according to a POLITICO review of the court’s docket."
Shocking to learning a law firm with nearly 2,700 lawyers has clients with business before the court. https://t.co/Bmj0EUp8NH
— Jay Caruso (@JayCaruso) April 25, 2023
Again, no indication of impropriety.
Just suggesting it so you think there is, without needing any evidence of it, so they can lay the groundwork for “corrupt court” when it doesn’t give Biden his way. https://t.co/2ahnoblx0k
— Sunny McSunnyface (@sunnyright) April 25, 2023
That’s exactly what Politico and the rest of the usual suspects are trying to do.
The more of the article you read, the more you wonder how any competent editor could possibly have given it the green light. It just falls apart at every seam. But hey, Politico, aside from that, solid effort.
But other than that, great hit everyone.
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) April 25, 2023
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