Antidote to Taylor "Conflict of Interest" Story from Glenn Greenwald

[BurtWorm]

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/08/bush-supporters-develop-sudden.html

Bush supporters develop sudden interest, expertise in judicial ethical rules

Bush supporters have suddenly developed -- literally overnight -- a profound and noble interest in the judicial ethical rules governing conflicts of interest. They're all experts on these rules now and most (though not all) have shockingly decided that Judge Anna Diggs Taylor acted improperly by ruling on the NSA case even though she is a Trustee of an organization that donated money to the ACLU (which means she is a corrupt person, which means that her ruling was wrong, which shows that the Commander-in-Chief did nothing wrong). Experts in judicial ethics are making clear that this was hardly an arrangement requiring recusal, but at worst, should have been disclosed.

To illuminate what is really going on here, let us note the fact that the same crowd attacking Taylor now was quite dismissive over a far more serious and corrupt "conflict of interest" -- the fact that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia went on an intimate little hunting trip with Vice President Dick Cheney just weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court decided to accept an appeal in the lawsuit in which Vice President Cheney had been sued for his failure to reveal facts surrounding the Energy Task Force. Cheney never disclosed his hunting excursion, nor did Scalia. Instead, the parties discovered this only when The Los Angeles Times learned of it and then reported it.

As the Washington Post reported at the time, "some legal ethicists and dozens of newspaper editorials have called on Scalia to stay out of the case." But Cheney's good friend and hunting buddy refused to recuse himself, and he then proceeded to vote in favor of his good friend in that case by joining an aggressively pro-Cheney dissent written by Clarence Thomas and joined by nobody else (not even then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist).

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[BurtWorm]

1. kick

[Ian David]

2. Justice Scalito and The Vanguard Fund

Plaintiff alleges Alito conflict

Plaintiff alleges Alito conflict
Says judge should have recused self

By Sarah Schweitzer and Michael Kranish, Globe Staff | November 3, 2005

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.

Maharaj, 50, discovered Alito's ownership of Vanguard shares in 2002 when she requested his financial disclosure forms after he ruled against her appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

More:
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2005/11/03/plaintiff_alleges_alito_conflict/

[BurtWorm]

3. kick

[datadiva]

4. This should be shouted from the rooftops!

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