2023-09-15 04:34:00
The US representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez denounced during a House Oversight Committee hearing on third-party litigation that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito maintains a friendship with Paul Singerthe Republican billionaire from the vulture fund NML Capital, who led the litigation against Argentina over the 2001 defaulted debt.
“Not a bad return on investment for a fishing trip”, Ocasio-Cortez ironically said during the hearing. The deputy cited a report of ProPublica earlier this year, which revealed that Alito did not declare a luxury fishing trip in Alaska in 2008 and with flights costing $100,000 (per section) on Singer’s private jet to and from the destination. Since that trip, he reported ProPublicathe hedge fund Singer had appeared before the Supreme Court at least 10 timeseven in the dispute with Argentina.
“He did not recuse himself from this case and, in fact, used his position on the Supreme Court after all this to rule in favor of Singer“Ocasio-Cortez told the witness Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, pointing to an enlarged image of Singer and Alito from the fishing trip. “And after the decision, Mr. Singer’s hedge fund ultimately received $2.4 billion due to this ruling. “Not a bad return on investment for a fishing trip there,” the Democrat denounced.
Ocasio-Cortez then asked Clark whether a lower court federal judge would have had to recuse himself if he were in Alito’s place. “Yes, there is a federal statute, I believe it is 28 USC 455, that requires the recusal of both magistrates and judges, under certain circumstances“Clark responded, after Ocasio-Cortez’s speaking time expired.
The statute Clark cited requires recusal when the judge knows that he, as an individual or fiduciary, “has a financial interest in the matter in controversy or in a part of the proceeding” or other interest that could be greatly affected by the resolution of a case.
The ProPublica report
According to the independent news agency ProPublicain early July 2008, the conservative judge and nominee of former President George W. Bush, Samuel Alito and Paul Singer, a hedge fund billionaire who has repeatedly asked the Supreme Court to rule in its favor in high-stakes trade disputes, they took photos together on the bank of the Nushagak River, known for one of the best salmon routes in the worldlocated in Alaska’s Katmai National Park.
Alito did not include the fishing trip in his financial statements that year. By not disclosing the private jet flight that Singer provided, Alito appears to have violated a federal law requiring judges to disclose most gifts, according to experts in ethical law. “If they were good friends, what would they do solving their case?”said Charles Geyh, a law professor at Indiana University and a leading expert on recusals. “And if they weren’t good friends, what were they doing accepting this?”he said, referring to the flight on the private jet.
In 2014, the Court agreed to resolve a key issue in a decade-long battle between Singer’s hedge fund and the Argentine Nation. Alito did not recuse himself from the case and voted with a 7-1 majority in favor of Singer. In the end, Singer received $2.4 billion.
In June of this year, ProPublica He sent Alito a list of questions, which the judge answered. Alito assured that when Singer’s companies appeared before the Court, the judge was unaware of the billionaire’s connection to the cases. She said she remembered speaking with Singer “on no more than a handful of occasions” and that they never discussed Singer’s business or problems in court.
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He also claimed that he was invited to fly on Singer’s plane shortly before the trip and that the seat “would otherwise have been empty”. He defended his failure to testify to the public, writing that the judges “commonly interpreted” that disclosure requirements did not include “accommodation and transportation for social events”.
In a statement, a Singer spokesperson told ProPublica what Singer did not organize the trip and did not know Alito would attend when he accepted the invitation. Singer “never discussed his business interests” with Justice, the spokesperson said, adding that at the time of the trip, neither Singer nor his companies had “any matter pending before the Supreme Court. nor mr. Singer could have anticipated in 2008 that a subsequent issue would arise that would warrant Supreme Court review”.
Singer’s conflict with Argentina
When Argentina defaulted in 2001, while other investors fled, Singer’s fund considered the crisis an opportunity. Your background bought Argentine government debt, at a steep discount. Over several years, as the Argentine economy recovered, most creditors reached an agreement with the government and accepted a fraction of the original value of the debt. But Singer’s fund, an arm of Elliott Management, called NML Capital, resisted.
In it 2007For the first, but not the last, time, Singer’s fund asked the Supreme Court to intervene in its conflict with the Argentine government. A lower court had prevented Singer and another fund from seizing funds from the Argentine Central Bank maintained in the United States. Investors appealed, but in October The Supreme Court refused to accept the case.
Beginning with Singer and Alito’s fishing trip to Alaska, They began to show their friendship publicly at social gatherings. In January 2010, the fund once again asked the High Court to deal with one aspect of the dispute. The Court refused. Total, The parties asked the Court to hear appeals in the litigation eight times in the six years after the trip. In most cases, it was Singer’s opponents who filed an appeal, and Singer’s fund managed to get the judges to reject the case and let a lower court act.
In fact, the United States Supreme Court hears a small portion of the many cases on which it is asked to rule every year. Under Court rules, cases are only accepted when at least four of the nine justices vote in favor. Deliberations over whether to take a case are shrouded in secrecy and take place in meetings attended only by magistrates. These decisions are a fundamental way the Court exercises power.
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As Singer’s battle with Argentina intensified, his hedge fund launched a broad public relations and lobbying campaign. In 2012, the fund Singer even tried to seize the Frigate Libertad, docked in Ghana to guarantee the country’s payment. The president at the time, Cristina Kirchner, described Singer and her colleagues as “vultures” who were trying to extort our sovereignty, and Singer argued that Argentina was using him as a “scapegoat.”
In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court finally agreed to hear a case on the issue.. It focused on an important question: how much protection Argentina could claim as a sovereign nation against the fund’s legal maneuvers in US courts. The government of The United States presented a brief in favor of Argentina, warning that the case raised “extraordinarily sensitive foreign policy concerns.” Finally, the Court ruled in favor of Singer 7-1 and Alito joined the majority.
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