- author, Anna Fagie
- role, BBC News
- Reported by Washington
Details of how much money U.S. Supreme Court justices have earned over the past year were made public through the Supreme Court’s financial disclosures on Friday.
The justices landed in hot water earlier this year after reports of gift trips revealed that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had been gifted tickets to a concert by singer Beyoncé, and Justice Clarence Thomas had been gifted two trips by major Republican donor Harlan Crow.
Four of the justices disclosed financial information about book deals.
The reports covering 2023 have been released for eight of the nine justices, with Justice Samuel Alito requesting a 90-day extension of the deadline for submitting the report.
Supreme Court justices are required to file gift disclosure forms every year.
Judge Brown Jackson received four tickets to the singer’s concerts from Beyonce, worth a total of $3,700 (more than £2,900).
Meanwhile, Justice Thomas included in his report this year a disclosure that he had taken two trips with Crowe in 2019, one to Bali and one to California, which were added as an amendment to his earlier disclosure.
The California trip was reportedly to a “private club,” possibly an allusion to the Bohemian Grove, a California club for wealthy and powerful men that Justice Thomas has reportedly visited in the past.
Food and lodging for both trips were gifted to Justice Thomas, according to the disclosures, but the exact cost of the trips was not listed.
ProPublica reported last year that the cost of the 2019 trip to Bali may have been as much as $500,000 (£403,000).
The nonprofit news website said in a report that Judge Thomas had received leave from real estate mogul Crowe almost every year for two decades.
At the time the news story was published, Justice Thomas argued that “personal entertainment of this nature” did not need to be included in the annual report.
Scrutiny of this omission led to similar criticism of other judges last year.
On Friday, Justices Neil Gorsuch, Sonia Sotomayor, Brett Kavanaugh and Brown Jackson listed book royalties as part of their financial disclosures.
Judge Brown Jackson earned more than $893,000 (more than £702,000) in a publication advance for her yet-to-be-published memoir.
Judge Kavanaugh revealed he received $340,000 (£267,000) for his soon-to-be-published “court memoirs.”
