it was enormous news. he was trying to basically recoup money, right? as reuters report once noted shortly after the story published, even his early reporting decided to hear it, clearly named singer and his company as key figures in the suit. paul singer is not some obscure character, he is one of the wealthiest people in this country and a prominent donor of conservative public. he even got a shout out at donald trump s first conference as president. paul singer just left, paul was very much involved with the anti trump or as i say, never trump and paul just left and he s given us his total support. and it s all about unification. we re unifying the party and hopefully we re going to be able to unify the country. so, i want to thank pulsing her for being here and for coming up to the office. he was very strong opponent, and now he s a very strong ally. and i appreciate that. now, this all comes in the wake of propublica s previous
less than two weeks. this is what it looks like when the ingenuity of delco meets the grit of philly and we work together to get it done. but all in, starts right. now. good evening from new york, i m chris hayes. we begin tonight with a photo. it is a photo of one of the most powerful men in the country, and one of the richest. that is supreme court justice samuel alito in the center, with hedge fund billionaire and republican megadonor pulsing or, she was right. on an alaskan fishing trip they took together in july of 2008. the two men are beaming as they probably show off their freshly caught king salmon. the largest salmon i ve ever seen someone catch. the photo is the attention grabbing centerpiece of a new propublica investigation into the previously undisclosed relationship between justice alito and paul singer, who later had business before the court, cases for which justice
to the court of police himself. but after this, he gave perhaps his strongest condemnation yet in response to the new report. let me say the obvious. there s something rotten going on in the supreme court of the united states of america. the offense offered by justice alito s laughable. i took that seat on a jet plane and didn t feel like i had to report it because it was going to be empty anyway. give me a break. there is no reason why the highest court in our nation have the lowest ethics. one of the few rules the justices do have to follow is the yearly publication of their financial disclosure forms. although, of course, as we have been learning, they often leave things out. we are still waiting on those disclosures from both justice alito and justice thomas, who interestingly enough, have received 90-day exceptions. justin elliott is one of the reporters who broke the story from propublica. it is a professor who wrote a book on the evolution of corruption in america. she als
mislead s its readers which is kind of funny because no one had read the story yet. no one even knew it was coming out except for the folks at propublica and justice alito, who propublica had asked for comment. the document that he published is an extremely bitter, defensive pre puddle. arguing that paul singer is somehow neither a friend nor someone giving him a gift. quote, my recollection is that i spoke to mr. singer on no more than a handful of occasions during a fishing trip 15 years ago consisted of brief and casual comments and events attended by large groups. illegal goes on to downplay the luxuriousness of the resort with a state, calling it and i like this turn of phrase, a comfortable but rustic village with home style meals. he claims to be unable to recall whether the group at the launch alito insisted there is no real way to quantify the value of the private jet flight on paul
revealed the various financial entanglements and gifts bespoke upon clarence thomas by another ideologically committed right-wing billionaire, harlan crow. and now, we know that thomas is not alone in accepting lavish gifts and not reporting them, as is legally required. the alaskan trip was organized by another powerful member of the conservative leave, that guy in the center, leonard leo. longtime member of the federal society, with his own freshly caught fish. propublica reports that leo invited paul singer to join the vacation, and asked singer if he and alito could fly in the billionaires jet. that flight, if chartered by the justice himself, would have cost an excess of $100,000.01 way. leo, singer, and alito state it a luxury fishing resort called the king salmon launch that attracted celebrities and wealthy businessmen, and charged $1,000 a day. the