Can we get rid of the Supreme Court and start over, please? Justice Clarence Thomas and his insurrectionist wife, Ginni, are inundated with scandals. And Brett Kavanaugh's finances have regularly come under scrutiny from Americans who want to learn his neat trick of making a huge loan disappear. And now there's Justice Neil Gorsuch, who failed to disclose a property transaction with a law firm head whose firm has had numerous cases before the court.
Politico reports:
For nearly two years, beginning in 2015, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch sought a buyer for a 40-acre tract of property he co-owned in rural Granby, Colo.
Nine days after he was confirmed by the Senate for a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court, the then-circuit court judge got one: The chief executive of Greenberg Traurig, one of the nation's biggest law firms with a robust practice before the high court. Gorsuch owned the property with two other individuals.
On April 16 of 2017, Greenberg's Brian Duffy put under contract the 3,000-square foot log home on the Colorado River and nestled in the mountains northwest of Denver, according to real estate records.
He and his wife closed on the house a month later, paying $1.825 million, according to a deed in the county's record system. Gorsuch, who held a 20 percent stake, reported making between $250,001 and $500,000 from the sale on his federal disclosure forms.
Gorsuch did not disclose the identity of the purchaser. That box was left blank.
It gets worse.
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.
They include cases in which Greenberg either filed amicus briefs or represented parties. In the 12 cases where Gorsuch's opinion is recorded, he sided with Greenberg Traurig clients eight times and against them four times.
In addition, a Denver-based lawyer for Greenberg represented North Dakota in what became one of the more highly publicized rulings in recent years, a multistate suit which reversed former President Barack Obama's plan to fight climate change through the Clean Air Act.
Why is it that only conservative Supreme Court Justices seem to be caught up in a myriad of scandals?
