Alito criticizes journalists’ investigation into Supreme Court ethics in new audio

Recently released audio recordings show conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito disparaging ProPublica’s Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting on ethics issues on the court, saying they would “make something out of every little thing they can find.”

The recording was made by Ally Sammarco, a colleague of liberal documentary filmmaker Lauren Windsor, at a Supreme Court Historical Society event on June 3. Windsor initially provided the audio recording to Rolling Stone and later shared it on social media on Tuesday.

In the audio recording, Sammarco approaches Alito, flatters him as an “American hero” and asks him what he thinks about the “undeserved” media criticism he is facing.

Alito initially responds relatively lukewarmly: “They don’t like our decisions, and they don’t like how they think we’re going to decide some of the cases to come. This is the beginning of the end.”

Then he explains this in more detail.

“There are groups that are very well funded by ideological groups that have led these attacks. That’s what it’s about,” he says.

When asked for details, Alito began skewering ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative media outlet.

“ProPublica gets a lot of money and they spent a fortune, for example, investigating Clarence Thomas. You know, everything he ever did in his life.

“That’s what they did to me,” he added. “They look for every little thing they can find and try to make something out of it.”

ProPublica won a Pulitzer Prize last month for its “Friends of the Court” series, which exposed 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 vacation funds from Texas billionaire 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 footage taken by Windsor at the same June 3 event shows Alito saying that “one side or the other is going to win” in the political divide between left and right. Windsor also recorded Alito agreeing with her when she said the country needs to “take our country back to a place of godliness.”

Alito has also recently come under fire after The New York Times revealed that flags linked to the Capitol rioters were flown outside his home shortly after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. He has rejected calls to recuse himself from cases involving the rioters and Trump’s allegations of election interference.

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