Supreme Transparency

Justice Gorsuch did not recuse himself from any cases in the 2023-2024 term for a conflict of interest.

Powerbroker

Koch Network

After Gorsuch joined the Supreme Court, he was hired by the Koch-funded Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University, which pays Gorsuch $25,000 a year in addition to giving him luxury travel to Italy and Iceland. According to the Associated Press: “Since joining the faculty in 2018, Gorsuch has regularly taught in Padua, Italy, where George Mason officials paid for his airfare, which cost $8,313 in 2022, and an apartment that cost $5,359 to rent, records show. Side trips paid for by the school included trips to Bologna, a culinary destination city, as well as nearby Venice, known for its palazzos, architecture and canals.” The law school is funded by right-wing billionaires including Charles Koch, according to the AP: “A $20 million contribution from an anonymous donor in 2016, which has been widely reported, was made contingent on renaming the school for Scalia, as well as hiring roughly a dozen new faculty members, according to records the school previously released. To ensure the school complied with the agreement, the donor and the school agreed that Leonard Leo, then an executive vice president of the Federalist Society, would serve as an overseer, records show. An additional $10 million was contributed through the arrangement by the Charles Koch Foundation, which was founded by billionaire conservative donor Charles Koch.” The $20 million anonymous gift has been traced to Barre Seid, who later gave Leo control of a $1.6 billion trust to influence the law.

Powerbroker

Philip Anschutz

According to the New York Times, as a law firm attorney in the early 2000’s, Gorsuch represented billionaire Philip Anschutz, his companies, and his business executives as an outside counsel. Anschutz’s fortune stems from fossil fuels, railroads, and hotels and has expanded into news, sports, and entertainment. A few years later, Anschutz lobbied the Bush administration and former U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard (R-CO) to nominate Gorsuch to the Tenth Circuit. While serving on that court, Gorsuch accepted repeated speaking gigs at Anschutz’s annual dove-hunting retreat at his private Eagles Nest Ranch. For more than 12 years, Gorsuch was also “partners in a limited-liability company with two of Mr. Anschutz’s top lieutenants,” with whom he owned “a 40-acre property on the Colorado River in the mountains northwest of Denver, where they built a vacation home together.” That property was listed for sale for years and suddenly sold for nearly two million dollars 9 days after Gorsuch was confirmed to the Supreme Court. Gorsuch did not disclose the buyer on ethics forms he was required to file; later reporting revealed the buyer was Brian Duffy, chief executive of Greenberg Traurig, a law firm that has since been involved in 22 Supreme Court cases.