Ketanji Brown Jackson’s ethics complaint over husband’s income

The Center for Renewing America, (CRA),  a conservative policy group, has filed an ethics complaint against SCOTUS Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson (KBJ) for “willfully” omitting required income disclosures for years while serving as a judge of other people, some of whom do similar crimes.

The CRA is headed by Russ Vought, a former top Trump White House official. 

Vought sent a letter to the Judicial Conference alleging that Jackson "willfully failed to disclose" required information regarding her husband’s malpractice consulting income for over ten years. [Now there's a dose of irony if there ever was one.]

The letter suggests that the Judicial Conference should refer Jackson’s possible ethics violations to the highly wimpy Attorney General Merrick Garland for investigation and possible civil enforcement. It notes that federal judges are legally required to disclose  "source of items of earned income earned by a spouse from any person which exceed $1,000…except…if the spouse is self-employed in business or a profession, only the nature of such business or profession needs be reported."

The fact that KBJ's husband deals with malpractice while legally committing it [allegedly] would be funny if not tragic.

As part of KBJ's nomination to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, she disclosed the names of two legal medical malpractice consulting clients who paid her husband, Dr. Patrick Jackson, more than $1,000 for the year 2011, the letter notes.

On subsequent filings, however, Jackson "repeatedly failed to disclose that her husband received income from medical malpractice consulting fees," the letter states.

"We know this by Justice Jackson’s own admission in her amended disclosure form for 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 letter says.

The word 'inadvertently' is defined by Dictionary,.com as: adverb, unintentionally; without meaning to. So one can surmise by KBJ's explanation that she meant to report the income but somehow, without meaning to, did not report it . . . for over ten years!

Maybe she didn't know that it was the law, after all, what does she know about the law when she cannot even tell us what is a woman because she isn't a biologist? But wait--she is a lawyer who became a judge and now a Supreme Court Justice of the United States. She should have known that it was legally required. Many people who are not biologists cannot define what is a woman, but she ought to be able to know what is legal and illegal using her standards.

Vought states that "Jackson has not even attempted to list the years for which her previously filed disclosures omitted her husband’s consulting income. Instead, in her admission of omissions on her 2020 amended disclosure form (filed in 2022), Justice Jackson provided only the vague statement that ‘some’ of those past disclosures contained material omissions."

Vought argues that her Dr. Jackson’s income does not qualify for the "self-employment" exception. The Ethics in Government Act of 1978 (EIGA) requires Justice Jackson to identify the "source of items of earned income earned by a spouse from any person which exceeds $1,000." He also notes that since KBJ knew of the requirements in 2012 well enough to list the specific sources of income for her first disclosure filing, but not in subsequent filings apart from admitting that she left off some of her husband’s income, her actions amount to "willful" violation of the law.

No wonder the Biden administration likes her and nominated her for the Supreme Court. She fits right in.

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