All on the taxpayer’s dime.
According to a report from NBC News, staff for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor pressured colleges and libraries to purchase copies of her books when being booked for speaking engagements.
Sotomayor’s memoir and children’s books have earned her $3.7 million since joining the court in 2009.
The Associated Press reviewed more than 100 open records from public institutions detailing actions taken by Sotomayor’s staff.
“This is one of the most basic tenets of ethics laws that protects taxpayer dollars from misuse,” said Kedric Payne, a former deputy chief counsel at the Office of Congressional Ethics and current general counsel for the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan government watchdog group in Washington. “The problem at the Supreme Court is there’s no one there to say whether this is wrong.”
From NBC News:
Supreme Court staffers have been deeply involved in organizing speaking engagements intended to sell books. That is conduct prohibited for members of Congress and the executive branch, who are barred under ethics rules from using government resources, including staff, for personal financial gain. Lower federal court judges are also instructed to not “lend the prestige of the judicial office to advance” their “private interests.”
In a statement, the Supreme Court said it works with the justices and their staff to ensure they are “complying with judicial ethics guidance for such visits.”
“When (Sotomayor) is invited to participate in a book program, Chambers staff recommends the number of books (for an organization to order) based on the size of the audience so as not to disappoint attendees who may anticipate books being available at an event,” the court said.
The documents obtained by AP show that the justices’ conduct spans their conservative-liberal split. Besides book sales, appearances by the justices were used in hopes of raising money at schools, which often invited major contributors to the events. Justices also lent the allure of their high office to partisan activity.
In 2019, as Sotomayor traveled the country to promote her new children’s book, “Just Ask!,” library and community college officials in Portland, Oregon, jumped at the chance to host an event.
They put in long hours and accommodated the shifting requests of Sotomayor’s court staff. Then, as the public cost of hosting the event soared almost tenfold, a Sotomayor aide emailed with a different, urgent concern: She said the organizers did not buy enough copies of the justice’s book, which attendees had to purchase or have on hand in order to meet Sotomayor after her talk.
“For an event with 1,000 people and they have to have a copy of Just Ask to get into the line, 250 books is definitely not enough,” the aide, Anh Le, wrote staffers at the Multnomah County Library. “Families purchase multiples and people will be upset if they are unable to get in line because the book required is sold out.”
Read the full story over at NBC News:
Well, well.
Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor’s staff prodded colleges and libraries to buy her books—NBC News https://t.co/p4i0K4owOc
— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) July 11, 2023
