Taxpayer-funded court employees were tasked with selling books to Democratic US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the Associated Press reported July 11.
According to documents obtained by the agency in response to FOIA requests, Supreme Court officials were actively involved in staging Sotomayor’s speeches to sell her books.
This behavior is prohibited for members of Congress and the executive branch, who are ethically prohibited from using public resources, including personnel, for personal financial gain. Lower federal court judges were also ordered not to “use the prestige of the judicial office for promotion” his “private interests”.
The agency notes that such use of employees from lower institutions is prohibited for employees of other branches of government and would be considered an ethics violation, but the US Supreme Court does not have a formal code of conduct, which it basically leaves nine judges to write their own rules and enforce them.
“This is one of the basic tenets of ethics law that protects taxpayer money from misuse.Kedrick Payne, a former deputy senior counsel at the Congressional Ethics Office and current general counsel at the Campaign Law Center, a nonpartisan government watchdog group in Washington, told reporters. — The problem in the Supreme Court is that there is no one to say if this is the right thing to do.”
The Supreme Court said in a statement that it is working with judges and their staff to ensure they “comply with judicial ethics guidelines for such visits.”
“When Sotomayor is invited to participate in a book show, court staff will recommend the number of books (to be ordered by the organization) based on the size of the audience so as not to disappoint attendees who expect books to be available at the show. event”.– told journalists the press service of the US Supreme Court.
Sotomayor is known to have made at least $3.7 million in book sales since he became a member of the United States Supreme Court in 2009.
Source: Rossa Primavera
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