Boston Globe reports possible Alito corruption
Thu Nov 03, 2005 at 06:45:57 AM PDT
A
report in today's Boston Globe, buried on the last page of the second section of the front page, may just contain a smoking gun that Dems can use to reject the Alito nomination.
Under the headline "Plaintiff alleges Alito conflict," the report documents a case in which Alito failed to recuse himself, despite having a clear financial interest in its outcome.
Follow the jump for quotes and commentary.
Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. ruled in a 2002 case in favor of the Vanguard mutual fund company at a time when he owned more than $390,000 in Vanguard funds and later complained about an effort to remove him from the case, court records show -- despite an earlier promise to recuse himself from cases involving the company.
The case involved a Massachusetts woman, Shantee Maharaj, who has spent nearly a decade fighting to win back the assets of her late husband's individual retirement accounts, which had been frozen by Vanguard after a court judgment in favor of a former business partner of her husband.
Her lawyer, John G. S. Flym, a retired Northeastern law professor, said in an interview yesterday that Alito's ''lack of integrity is so flagrant" in the case that he should be disqualified as a Supreme Court nominee.
It turns out that Alito's conflict was only discovered after Maharaj reviewed his financial disclosure forms following his negative ruling in her case:
''I just started seeing Vanguard after Vanguard, and I almost fell to the floor," she said in an interview at the Jamaica Plain home she shares with a friend after losing her own home in the course of the prolonged litigation. ''I just couldn't believe that it could be so blatant."
Alito when seeking confirmation as a circuit judge in 1990 had sworn he would disqualify himself from cases "involving the Vanguard companies, but then refused to do so in the Maharaj case. In fact, he even complained when the case was appealed that "I do not believe that I am required to disqualify myself based on my ownership of the mutual fund shares."
It appears Alito was assigned the case in error, but his failure to recuse himself certainly looks like a significant breach of judicial ethics. By itself it may not be enough to scuttle his nomination, but it's something that definitely should come up in hearings.
