family. >> cassandra gd with her book "first family," sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's "q&a." thereon "q&a" and all our podcasts on our free c-span now app. >> a healthy democracy doesn't just look like. this it looks like this. where americans can see democracy at work. where citizens are truly informed, a republic thrives. get informed, straight from the source. on c-span. unfiltered, unbiased, word-for-word from the nation's capitol to wherever you are. because the opinion that matters the most is your own. this is what democracy looks like. c-span, powered by cable. joinia kaplan, a reporter for pro public a and he along with his colleagues wrote this piece for

the publication. thanks for joining us. tell us what was this trip that the associate justice talk? guest: we found justice samuel alito went on a luxury alaska fishing vacation with the hedge fund billionaire and political mega donor who regularly had cases before the supreme court. they didn't just go on vacation together. alito also flew across the country to alaska on this billionaires private jet. we are told that if he had charted the plane itself, it could've exceeded $100,000 one-way. alito did not disclose this. it's been secret until now and

experts told us he appears to have violated a federal law passed after watergate the wires justices to disclose most gifts. more noteworthy here, after the trip, the same millionaire had case after case in the supreme court and alito never recused himself. it's quite remarkable. experts told us that they were not aware of any other example of this ever happening, of a supreme court justice sitting on a case after having received an expensive gift paper by one of the parties. host: your investigative work also includes the stories that broke recently about justice clarence thomas. justice clarence thomas has not responded. the washington post this morning says justice alito came out swinging at the publication. he refuted your story in a wall

street journal piece that was posted online tuesday. he takes issue with you calling it a luxury trip. he said the seat on the plane would have been empty anyway and this was already -- this trip was already going to happen with or without him and if he had paid for it himself on a commercial flight, that would have been another issue with taxpayers paying for u.s. marshals to accompany him. he also talks about not drinking $1000 wine and the accommodations were modest where he stayed. how do you respond? guest: i wouldn't say refuted, he agreed with the premise of the story which is that he went -- he took a private jet flight from this billionaire. he did not disclose it and when the billionaire had a case before the court, he didn't

recuse himself. that's not in dispu. is op-ed that alito released -- for those who haven't read th article, we went to alito before we publish with their questi they wtail questions about what we had been learning and trying to understand his perspective and get additional context from him. we were told by the court spokesperson t wou not respond in a few hours later, he published this essential response to our question in the wall street journal. in terms of the disputes about the luxury of this issue, luxury is in the eye of the beholder. this was a hotel that cost more than $1000 per day. it employed private jet pilots flying around alaska and fishing guides and a private chef that

made meals for them every evening, multicourse meals like alaskan king crab legs and kobe fillets, we so the menu. celebrities like people like dan rather or ingram and many others took part. kevin costner back in the day and maybe bruce willis, i can't remember all my celebrities off and. -- offhand. his more substantive response is that he didn't need to recuse himself -- what he is saying is that when this billionaires company had a case before the court, alito was not aware that the billionaire paul singer was connected to the company. he also said he had only met paul singer and full of times

and that they had never talked about his businesses were issues before the court. that's important context. it speaks to a larger issue here. there is a high standard when justices and judges should recuse themselves. there is a federal law that addresses this but it's very subjective. it's when a reasonable person might question the justices impure -- impartiality. it's not a standard that says the justice has done anything wrong. it's a standard that says if it looks like the justice might've done something wrong, basically. a lot of experts we talked to put this that it's kind of simple in their view. in a way, many people can

understand this if you were in a courtroom and you found out the person on the other seida view had taken the judge on a luxury vacation, you might not feel that's a situation that puts you in a very fair place. whether or not the judge actually is capable of being unbiased and impartial. at the supreme court, we have that subjective standard which is very high and a potential conflict of interest arises and it's time to determine if adjusters should be used themselves were not, the only person that makes that decision, the sole arbeiter of weather adjusters should step away from base is the justice himself. it's a decision that cannot be appealed and alito's opinion as to whether he should be recused is the final word. that's not how it works and other court rooms but that's how it works in the supreme court. host: from his peace in the wall

et journal, he disputes the repair porting and he said when i joined the court until the recent amendment of the fi instructions, justices commonly interpreted this discussion of hospitality to mean that accommodations and transportation for social events were not reportable gifts. thht to alaska was the only occasion when i have purely a social evd ion for follow what i understood to be the standard pract for these reasons, i did not include a my financial disclosure ethe accommodations provided by the owner of the king salmon lodge who to my knowledge is never been involved in any matter before the work or the seat on the flight to alaska. guest: i think it's a fascinating response. this is the standard practice he's saying and he says justices regularly did not disclose private jet flights and someone

gave him a private jet flight to a social gathering, a vacation or accommodation and he says he understood it was common practice not to tell the public which is a start contrast to every other branch of government does in terms of the standard where there are ethics officers that review things like disclosure. every expert we talked to said that's not the right interpretation of the law. the law is really clear when it comes to gifts of private jet flights and things of that nature. we talked to former government ethics lawyers who interpreted these laws for a living in both democratic and republican administrations. weaved talked to a lot of them and there's been complete unanimity on that point. host: let's get to our calls, republican, europe first. caller: good morning, c-span and thank you for the openness of this discussion. let's talk about c-span in this

particular guest you have on, who sponsors the sandler foundation and the george soros group and are we investigating pete buttigieg and john kerry? let's get really open and honest about what's going on here. this is a left-wing organization who is specifically going after conservatives. i am on the website and i'm reading this stuff as we speak. let's not be so one-sided. c-span, you should be embarrassed and ashamed for promoting this kind of left-wing liberal ideology without an open discussion going around it. host: you get to ask the very question you just asked of our guest this morning. can you answer, what is the focus of pro public and who funds it? guest: we are a nonprofit,

nonpartisan organization. i believe we have over 40,000 donors and lots of small donors in summer foundations that fund media work and we publish and disclose these donors online. i don't really know much about our donors because there is a firewall between that side of the shop and the editorial side of the shop. what you are getting at is bias and i think that's coming from the fact that our reporting of supreme court this far -- thus far -- we have focused on justice alito and justice clarence thomas. i can assure you that the reason we are doing that has nothing to do with their opinions of their political beliefs. me and my colleagues working on this with me have no interest in the partisanship of the

justices. we are actively reporting on the supreme court as a whole. we are reporting on all nine justices. we are just doing everything we can to follow the facts where they leave. host: windham, connecticut, independent. caller: thanks for taking my call. i read the article and it's really good and read samuel alito's response. it was interesting. i want to go over the panoply of what went on. clarence thomas taking luxury vacations undisclosed, his wife ginny taking consulting fees from leonard leo of the federal society, undisclosed. neil gorsuch selling property in colorado to a law firm that argues in front of the cart, undisclosed.

you think chief justice robert would tackle these issues but his wife takes millions of dollars from law firms in fees that argue in front of the court, undisclosed. what was samuel alito's response in the wall street journal? you can accept gifts and i'm paraphrasing, as long as it otherwise wouldn't go to use. can you imagine using that in a bribery case? my question to you is there's got to be away that we can lock this down. the supreme court is at an all-time low and there's got to be a way we can push back. host: joshua kaplan. guest: yeah, it's worth making the distinction between some of

these things that have come out. john roberts'wife for instance, it's healthy that's being examined, scrutiny of public officials, spouses work has a long history in other branches of government and historically it has not happened at the supreme court. we don't get that type of sustained coverage. there is not really evidence of impropriety here. she has her own we are and she makes a lot of money for a normal person but there is not really any evidence of having something improper happening in terms of ethical standards, as i understand it, or disclosure rules.

one reason it's hard to distinguish between these things if you go to any other public official and you say, this is something that looks off and it looks potentially unethical, what do you say in response? the best possible response for them to say his i went to an ethics official ahead of time they told me i should do it in this way and they told me it was ok to do, everything here was ok. i had someone objectively look at it and tell me this is within the bounds of my responsibility as a public servant to the american people. that doesn't exist in the supreme court. there isn't anyone to call balls and strikes. what you are getting at here is a significant point. there is a lack of transparency and oversight in the supreme

word that is in stark contrast to our government. the justices are largely allowed to police themselves. there are very few restrictions and when potential conflicts arise, they are the ones that decide how to handle it the justice who has an essential conflict, there is no outside arbeiter. host: time magazine did a piece in 2022 about how much justices make, some of them have written books and they've made money from that. that's in addition to their base salary which is over $250,000. the chief justice makes more. justices are legally limited to not earn more than roughly $30,000 for outside teaching and several justices earned close to that in 2021. clarence thomas reported 20

9000, 5 hundred $95 from george washington university law school and the university of notre dame. gorsuch earned over $26,000 from a university. brett kavanaugh earned $25,000 and amy coney barrett. what has been your reporting on their salary what they can make themselves in this position? guest: yeah, they make a good salary by most american standards. a lot of them make a lot of money off book deals. they certainly can afford to go on vacations or in clarence thomas's case, they could have reported the child they were raising. it's really interesting that

supreme court justices are making a pittance in comparison to what they could make in the private sector if they were to retire and become partners in a major law firm in your raking in millions of dollars per year. i don't want to speculate on whether there is any connection there but some justices have complained publicly about how much they make. the fact that they are living on a public servant salary and flying private jets around the world is not something that the vast of merit -- vast amount of americans can afford is a fascinating set of circumstances. host: springfield, illinois, democratic caller. caller: good morning.

just to update this salary, $285,000 for the eighth justices and $15,000 more for the chief justice. josh, you are doing a wonderful job. this is what we need is the scrutiny of the government and it seems like the supreme work is not had that in the past. we know scalia took these hunting and fishing trips all the time. i wonder who paid for that. i am thankful you would do that. even if we acknowledge this issue, can we actually put some meat on it in the sentence that federal judges if they did something, is there a federal crime for that? can we go the justice file a

case to test whether or not they can be charged with a crime? this is a crime if they were in congress. just recently, there were these shenanigans going on but now it's illegal for a congressman to have any lunch being paid for. host: let's take your point, joshua kaplan. guest: yeah, some people i've talked to, potentially the issue is the only mechanism is through the department of justice right now which is quite the hammer to bring down on a supreme court justice. the disclosure statute which is one of the few binding rules affecting the supreme court, they have to disclose gifts to the public.

if they were found to have willfully and intentionally failed to meet those disclosure obligations, there could be civil or criminal penalties from the doj. i think that's exceedingly unlikely for a number of reasons. in other parts of the government, there is a lot of things in between this, between criminal prosecution and literally nothing. there have been some bills introduced to congress recently that would do things like tightknit standards for recusal that are more clear and gives more teeth to them that would create a binding code of ethics

for the supreme court. importantly, enforcement, create an ethics office to examine issues that arise and could investigate complaints and enforce them in some capacity. they could refer to criminal law enforcement if they thought it was warranted. there is currently no apparatus sure of the utterly unprecedented attorney general launching a criminal investigation into a supreme court justice. host: burlington, north carolina, republican. caller: yeah, this guy is nothing but a liberal activist because he's trying to pick the

friends the justices can have and trying to control the court by having the justices get through a trial just to find out if they are going to be on it. it's like mr. thomas, his mother is allowed to have a reverse mortgage. have you heard of a reverse mortgage? that's all i have to say. host: we will take your first point about the justices friends, in this case, who was on that trip to alaska with justice alito? guest: it's really interesting. in this case, alito and the billionaire gave them private jet ride at the cost of $100,000 one-way did not know each other before this trip. this was the first time they met

we found out. invited the trip by leonardwas le le leer of the federalist society played an instrumental role in picking judges in this country and leonard leo as paul singer if samuel alito cou on is plane. for all of the prominent guests he tp, this is the only clear connection between them. leonard leo, were talking a supreme court justice leo had played a key role in a federal judge who leo had clerked for an two major donors to leo's network. host: i want to jump in a point that we are showing a picture of those that were on the trip

leonard leo center in 2008 wit the guide and the gas but please contin guest: i can't recall the entire question. host: maybe it will come to you. let's go to fill in long island, new york, independent. caller: good morning. i thought c-span did a great job uncovering the hearings and they had the three panelists there with the young lady in the middle and the professor from hofstra at the time. i think they should be held to the same as district court judges about recusing themselves and reporting what they are earning and who's giving them gifts. you go back up little further in history and the only thing that was important on that hearing was have private interests get

involved in the lobby to push the support dish supreme court justices on the supreme court. if we go back to the obama administration, right after site sotomayor was appointed,, how much influence did he have about sotomayor being appointed and if we go further about recusing themselves, the supreme court justice kagan was a solicitor general for obama and she did not recuse yourself on obamacare which affected this country in a lot of ways. there needs to be more scrutiny and definitely the supreme court should be held to the same standard as the lower courts. i would like to know what you have to say about kagan. host: let's get a response and i think he was talking with the

senate judiciary committee holding ethical standard hearings for the supreme court. guest: it's really interesting. the recusal standard at the court for kagan and for every justice on the court, we are playing a guessing game when it comes to, historically, whether they recuse themselves from a case, why they are refusing. there has been a lot of writing in legal scholarship. they should be disclosing things proactively. when there is a potential conflict, they should be saying with that potential conflict is why they don't have to recuse themselves. right now, these refusals more or less a mystery. they don't say why they are or

not recusing themselves. it's not a decision that can be challenged really. there also no reason to think there is any consistency among the justices when it comes to recusal. some justices were no longer on the court not to distant history, they publicly said i don't say why i recuse myself was i'm not sure my colleagues would recuse themselves in the exact same circumstances and basically, i don't want to put them in a bad spot because i ship -- chose recusal and that's now the standard. if recusal is an important thing, it's an incredibly opaque system right now. host: tyler, texas, democratic caller. caller: good morning, people who

call in just to attack pro publica or c-span don't realize the media is an important part of democracy and they are basically attacking their own opportunity to voice their opinion and have a voice in our country. secondly, i worked for a number of years in the local federal system for judges and it was just hammered into us about the very basic appearance of impropriety. that was for the staff and the judge and it was real basic. there is nothing questionable. they usually said if you have to ask about a coming or probably not supposed to be doing. probably it's out of control at the supreme court. it probably has been for years and then i -- and or might not be an answer to it. once you let people police themselves they become kings and

a kingdom, you can have that with presidents or at any level. once there is no accountability to the people, i think we have lost it. i guess the appearance of impropriety is down the drain. it's a little basic bottom level thing that i think is the answer to all of it but it may be too late. guest: yeah, i think that gets to a solid point which is judges in a unique position of public trust have immense power to unilaterally decide on issues that affect every american. they have lifetime tenure and they're are supposed to conduct themselves with the highest levels of probity even compared

to what we expect from other public servants, to go to great lengths to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. we have talked with federal judges over the course of this reporting. they have been shocked by what's happening at the supreme court. one federal judge told us after our first story about justice thomas that it's incomprehensible someone would do that. we've had a number of judges saying when my lawyer friends want to buy me lunch, i won't let them because maybe they will come before the court someday in the fact that they bought me lunch would look like a problem. i think that is the way a lot of judges live in there is a reason this extraordinary lofty version of ethics has become so internalized for many on the

judiciary. host: have you done scrutiny of the other justices and their financial disclosures and how do they compare with what you found with justice thomas and justice alito? guest: we absolutely are still reporting. there were two answers to that. in terms of these undisclosed trips, there is nothing out there, there's nothing public that suggests anything on the scale of what justice thomas has done or suggest that other than justice alito has ruled on the case after having received a private jet ride from one of the litigants. the second answer is these things were secret. these were not disclosed.

that's what