Justice Samuel Alito’s annual financial disclosure was due on May 15. So, obviously, he posted it today.
Federal judges can take up to 90 extra days to perform the barest of minimum acts of transparency, and Alito takes advantage of that almost every year. His eight colleagues filed on time and the Administrative Office posted their forms on June 29, Bad Bunny tickets and seven-figure book advances and all. Alito extended his clock to run into late September.
Now, here’s the scheduling rub. On October 5, the first argument day of the new term, the justices will hear Suncor Energy (U.S.A.) Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, where the oil and gas industry will beseech the Court to ban local governments from suing polluters over climate damage. Since May, watchdog groups have been asking the Senate Judiciary Committee to look at why Alito hasn’t recused, given that, based on past disclosures, he’s the only justice holding oil and gas stock directly. A late-September filing would have answered that question a few days the oral argument.
And that filing reveals that he hasn’t divested from any of it. ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66, AES, BHP Billiton, Black Hills, OGE Energy, Woodside Energy, all at the same value ranges as last year with no sales recorded, plus a mineral interest in Grady County, Oklahoma, reported at $100,001 to $250,000.
Given that Alito has shown no sign of recusing in the face of an obvious conflict of interest, could he have sped up his disclosure hoping that the story has time to cool down before he sits down to make sure the Earth never will?
That’s a deeply cynical read, but we’re also talking about a deeply cynical actor.
As a reminder, Alito recused from the 2023 cert petition in this very case. He recused from a 2025 petition raising the same question with different companies. In January he stepped out of Chevron U.S.A. v. Plaquemines Parish days before argument over his ConocoPhillips shares. Then in February he voted to grant cert in Suncor. Back in May, a spokeswoman told NBC News that Alito “does not have a financial interest in any party” in the case and that Court lawyers advised him “his recusal is not required.”
It’s a neat trick for an industry seeking a particular outcome. Just continue to play musical litigants until you strike on a combination that the judge doesn’t own. The fact that the case implicates the stocks he owns and he will profit off the decision he makes doesn’t matter because he doesn’t have a current stake in either of these parties.
The recusal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 455(b)(4), disqualifies a judge who has a financial interest “in the subject matter in controversy or in a party to the proceeding, or any other interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding.” But, of course, the Supreme Court does not consider itself bound by any ethical rules so… “shrug emoji” it is.
The spokeswoman also explained that the earlier 2023 recusal was “inadvertent.”
Yeah, it’s hard keeping track when you’re betting on oil and gas stocks like DraftKings on the first weekend of football. Did I put $50 on the Bills outright or just to cover? Is it Exxon or Chevron? It’s all so confusing.
The Revolving Door Project pointed out that the oil companies themselves have treated these cases as linked in their own filings. In fact, they told the justices back in 2022 that the Colorado suit was “less likely” than the others to present recusal problems. The petitioners were apparently tracking Alito’s conflicts more carefully than Alito was.
Remember Paul Singer? The guy who flew Alito to Alaska on his private jet for a trip before Alito ended up hearing Singer’s case. In another stroke of convenient inadvertence, Alito claimed he never realized Singer was involved in that matter when he refused to recuse from that one too. Anyway… Singer’s Elliott Investment Management holds more than 52 million shares of Suncor.
Scolds may say, even if the rules applied to justices, that § 455(b)(4) doesn’t reach a justice’s stock in nonparty companies that merely operate in the same industry. Reading the statute that broadly, they might say, would require recusal every time any outcome moves a sector. But… justices don’t have to own stocks. Would we be comfortable with a judge landing a case impacting a specific sector and then instantly buying every other player in that sector before deciding? Because that’s the logical extension of this reading.
Anyway, congratulations to Alito on all his financial success.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.
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