Supreme Court Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was recently slapped with an ethics complaint from a conservative nonprofit, accusing the latest member of the High Court of failing to disclose the income of her husband’s business for more than 10 years.
On Dec. 18, 2023, the Center for Renewing America filed a complaint against Jackson, alleging that the Supreme Court associate justice “willfully failed to disclose required information regarding her husband’s medical malpractice consulting income for over a decade.”
“As part of her nomination to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Justice Jackson disclosed the names of two legal medical malpractice consulting clients who paid her husband more than $1,000 for the year 2011,” the complaint read.
“On her subsequent filings, however, Justice Jackson repeatedly failed to disclose that her husband received income from medical malpractice consulting fees,” it continued.
“We know this by Justice Jackson’s own admission in her amended disclosure form of 2020, filed when she was nominated to the Supreme Court, that ‘some of my previously filed reports inadvertently omitted’ her husband’s income from ‘consulting on medical malpractice cases,” the complaint added.
NEW: Biden SCOTUS appointee Ketanji Brown Jackson "repeatedly failed to disclose that her husband received income from medical malpractice consulting fees" on her financial disclosure forms for a decade as a federal judgehttps://t.co/3o5yhBBfGX
— Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) December 20, 2023
The Center for Renewing America went on in its ethics complaint against Jackson, claiming that she was “vague” in her statements concerning past disclosures that “contained material omissions.”
The center’s complaint questions whether Jackson violated laws requiring federal judges to disclose any source of income exceeding $1,000.
The complaint pointed out alleged violations regarding receiving gifts, noting that Jackson’s failure to report on “material sources of income and gifts” has allowed her to remain free of public criticism by shielding “potential conflicts of interest.”
The complaint comes amid criticism of Supreme Court justices that arose following reports of the High Court members’ ethics disclosures, honing on Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ relationship with GOP donor Harlan Crow.
In November 2023, facing increasing pressure from the Senate, the Supreme Court issued its first-ever code of conduct.
All nine Supreme Court justices had voiced their support for an ethics code, arguing that such a measure would “dispel” the misunderstanding of the High Court’s jurists.
