Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito's Wall Street Journal op-ed responding to a forthcoming story from a left-wing outlet left liberal journalists fuming this week.
Alito published a piece Tuesday in advance of a story from left-leaning nonprofit ProPublica that discussed a 2008 fishing trip he took that included Republican billionaire Paul Singer, going on to report he had not recused himself from future cases involving Singer's hedge fund or disclosed the trip. While a Supreme Court spokesperson had told ProPublica Alito wouldn't respond, he took to the WSJ to call the charges invalid, explaining why he felt he had no need to recuse the relevant cases and why his trip didn't meet the definition of a disclosable gift.
Many were affronted to see the name of a Supreme Court justice in the opinion pages of a newspaper.
"We were surprised to see Justice Alito’s answers appear to our questions in an opinion essay in The Wall Street Journal, but we’re happy to get a response in any form," ProPublica editor Stephen Engelberg said in a statement to the New York Times. "We’re curious to know whether The Journal fact-checked the essay before publication. We strongly reject the headline’s assertion that ‘ProPublica Misleads Its Readers,’ which the piece declared without anyone having read the article and without asking for our comment."
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The media response to Alito's op-ed was swift, even from mainstream outlets. The New York Times called it "highly unusual," and ex-Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou took a shot at his former employer, saying it was a "terrible look."
Hard-left voices expressed their derision as well.
"ProPublica emailed some questions for a story to Sam Alito and instead of answering the questions or just ignoring the email, he ran to his little gremlin friends at the WSJ Opinion section and wrote a blog post about it," progressive Balls & Strikes editor Jay Willis seethed.
"The paper has decided they will give him the platform to say whatever he wants," a Jezebel article said. "The Nation" Justice correspondent Elie Mystal suggested Alito should die, tweeting, "Next time some rich white person wants to take Sam Alito on an expensive trip, please take him to see the Titanic."
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., tweeted, "Wouldn’t it be nice to know the back story on how this WSJ editorial gambit got cooked up?" Igor Bobic of the left-wing HuffPost wrote, "WSJ op ed page now openly running PR for a SCOTUS justice."
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Mother Jones editor Clara Jeffrey added, "While there are many good journalists who work for the WSJ, this is one of many decisions by the masthead that really call the entire enterprise into question. Have to think that were news media more healthy/flush, people would be voting with their feet," and "1619 Project" founder Nikole Hannah Jones called it "highly unethical."
Far-left Guardian columnist Margaret Sullivan – formerly a media writer for the Washington Post – compared Alito's actions to convicted fraudster Elizabeth Holmes and scolded the Journal for giving Alito ink space to reply.
"The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page agreed to publish Alito’s defensive statement, in an op-ed, about the ProPublica revelations before the investigative article had even run… Call it a 'pre-buttal", and one that lacked even a basic level of journalistic solidarity on the part of the Journal’s opinion side," she wrote. "Thought experiment: what if, say, the Washington Post’s editorial board had allowed Elizabeth Holmes to preempt John Carreyrou’s investigation for the Wall Street Journal that exposed the fraudulent practices of her blood-testing company, Theranos (her crimes sent her to federal prison last month)."
Politico's Playbook newsletter gushed over the story and used the headline "Alito picks a fight with ProPublica," leading to a rejoinder from the Wall Street Journal editorial board.
"The Justice defends himself against a phony ethics assault from the press, and he’s the one picking the fight?" the board asked. "Justice Alito clearly wanted his defense to receive public disclosure in full, not edited piecemeal. We saw ProPublica’s list of 18 questions and had a good idea of where the reporters were going. The story proved us right."
ProPublica, in part of a wider media onslaught against conservative judges as Democrats increasingly question the court's legitimacy, has also published recent pieces about Clarence Thomas' relationship with GOP megadonor Harlan Crow.
Some other conservative writers have dismissed ProPublica as part of a wider institutional effort to tear down the court. In National Review, Dan McLaughlin wrote Alito had done nothing wrong, while Noah Rothman wrote the Supreme Court's "would-be ‘reformers’ have about as much interest in its legitimacy as Typhoid Mary had in the promotion of public health."
