Oh look! Another right wing judge apparently doesn't know how to properly fill out financial disclosures.
As we already discussed here, Matthew J. Kacsmaryk issued an opinion earlier this month ordering the FDA to remove the abortion pill mifepristone, which was almost immediately reversed by a Washington court that directly contradicted the Texas court's decision.
The Supreme Court just stayed Kacsmaryk's ruling pending full appeal, but in the meantime, there's a lot more we've been learning about this judge, like the fact that he ought to be impeached for lying during his confirmation hearing in the Senate (sadly, so should several members of our Supreme Court), where he failed to disclose interviews on Christian talk radio where he disparaged contraception and gay rights.
On top of that news, we're also learning from CNN that the interviews weren't the only thing he was hiding.
The federal judge who issued a nationwide ruling blocking the approval of a common abortion medication redacted key information on his legally mandated financial disclosures, in what legal experts described as an unusual move that conceals the bulk of his personal fortune.
In his 2020 and 2021 annual disclosures, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk wrote that he held between $5 million and $25 million in “common stock” of a company – a significant majority of the judge’s personal wealth. The name of the company he held stock in is redacted, despite the fact that federal law only allows redactions of information that could “endanger” a judge or their family member.
CNN obtained a previous financial disclosure for Kacsmaryk – which is not available online – from 2017, when he was a judicial nominee.
On that unredacted form, Kacsmaryk reported owning about $2.9 million in stock in the Florida-based supermarket company Publix. It’s not clear whether that’s the same holding as the redacted stock, although Publix’s share price had significantly increased by 2020 and 2021 and the company is no longer listed on his more recent disclosures.
Redactions are approved by a judicial committee. The redacted holding accounted for at least 85% of Kacsmaryk’s total reported wealth in 2021, and potentially more.
It would be really nice if the Senate Judiciary Committee would haul this guy in under oath to discuss this matter, but with Feinstein out, I'm not expecting any action on this or Clarence Thomas any time soon.
