If Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito were serving on a lower court, he would have been required to recuse himself from hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer's cases before the court, an ethics expert told New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D, during a House Oversight Committee hearing on third-party litigation in the nation's courts Wednesday. His failure to do so resulted in Singer's hedge fund winning ruling worth $2.4 billion after the high court returned a decision in his favor in a dispute between his hedge fund and the nation of Argentina.
"Not a bad return on investment for a fishing trip," Ocasio-Cortez said during the hearing. The Democratic representative referenced ProPublica's report earlier this year revealing that Alito failed to disclose a 2008 luxury fishing trip in Alaska and $100,000-one-way flights on Singer's private jet to and from the destination. Since that trip, ProPublica reported, Singer's hedge fund had come before the Supreme Court at least 10 times, including in the dispute with Argentina.
