Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has found herself at the center of controversy with allegations regarding her failure to disclose required income information.
An ethics complaint filed against her by the Center for Renewing America (CRA), a conservative policy group, raises questions about Justice Jackson’s transparency and adherence to legal requirements.
Ketanji Brown Jackson was nominated to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and subsequently appointed to the Supreme Court in 2022.
However, it has now come to light that she may have violated ethics rules by failing to disclose her husband’s income from medical malpractice consulting fees.
The Center for Renewing America, led by former Trump White House official Russ Vought, has filed an ethics complaint against Justice Jackson, accusing her of willfully omitting decades-old income disclosures.
Allegations Of Omitted Income Disclosures
According to the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, federal judges are required to disclose the source of earned income exceeding $1,000.
While Justice Jackson initially disclosed the names of two clients who paid her husband over $1,000 for medical malpractice consulting in 2011, subsequent filings failed to include this information.
“On her subsequent filings, however, Justice Jackson repeatedly failed to disclose that her husband received income from medical malpractice consulting fees. We know this by Justice Jackson’s own admission in her amended disclosure form for 2020, filed when she was nominated to the Supreme Court, that “some of my previously filed reports inadvertently omitted” her husband’s income from “consulting on medical malpractice cases,” said CRA in the complaint.
“In sum, Justice Jackson’s refusal to list the years for which her husband received medical malpractice consulting income is a flagrant violation of EIGA. And her admission of this failure and refusal to list the years in which her husband received such income only demonstrates willfulness,” said CRA.
CRA contends that her husband’s income does not qualify for the “self-employment” exception and that she was aware of the disclosure requirements when she initially listed the specific sources of income in her first filing.
By subsequently omitting this information, she may have deliberately violated the law.
The ethics complaint filed by the Center for Renewing America requests that the Judicial Conference refer Justice Jackson’s possible ethics violations to Attorney General Merrick Garland for investigation and potential civil enforcement.
This would involve a thorough examination of her financial disclosures and an assessment of whether any laws were broken. The outcome of such an investigation could have significant implications for Justice Jackson’s career and reputation.
In addition to the income disclosure allegations, there are concerns that Justice Jackson may have failed to report the private funding sources for her investiture celebration at the Library of Congress.
The Ethics in Government Act requires the disclosure of any gift received over $415.
While it is unclear who paid for the event, there are indications that Justice Jackson may not have fully disclosed the sources of funding, including the cost of flowers from Oprah Winfrey and a designer jacket from her Vogue photo shoot.
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The Center for Renewing America argues that Justice Jackson’s failure to report material sources of income and gifts has shielded potential conflicts of interest from public scrutiny.
This lack of transparency undermines the ability of the public, watchdog groups, and parties involved in cases to scrutinize her recusal decisions.
The controversy surrounding her ethics violations raises concerns about her impartiality and the integrity of her judgments.
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