By Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. received concert tickets valued at $900 last year from a German princess known for her conservative Catholic views and sold stock in a beer company targeted by anti-LGBTQ+ activists, according to his financial disclosure form released Friday.
Alito continues to own individual stock in more than two dozen companies — a practice that is permitted, but that transparency advocates caution can lead to conflicts of interest that require recusal from key cases. The justice reported owning stock in Abbott Laboratories, Boeing and ConocoPhillips, among several other companies.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. is the only other member of the high court who owns individual stocks; most other justices invest in mutual funds.
Alito’s 2023 disclosure report was made public nearly three months after the reports by the rest of the justices; he requested an extension to file, as he has done in previous years.
The filing did not include any travel reimbursements, a category that has drawn increased interest since the revelation in recent years that Justice Clarence Thomas — and, to a lesser extent, Alito — had received private jet trips and lavish vacations from wealthy benefactors and had not disclosed them. Thomas and Alito have said that they did not believe they had to disclose the free travel.
The report also showed that Alito has repaid most of a loan from Edward Jones taken in 2015 and originally valued at between $250,001 and $500,000. Alito noted that he had updated past disclosure forms from 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2022, where he said mention of the loan was inadvertently omitted.
Alito reported that he sold up to $15,000 worth of stock in Anheuser-Busch, the parent company of Budweiser and Bud Light, in late August, and purchased stock in Molson Coors Beverage Company, which owns Coors and Coors Light.
The transaction coincided with a controversy surrounding Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender social media influencer who faced right-wing backlash after promoting Bud Light on her Instagram. Conservatives launched a two-week boycott of the beer company, which had created a beer can personalized with Mulvaney’s image to celebrate her first anniversary of coming out as transgender.
In addition, the justice reported receiving concert tickets from Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, a European socialite nicknamed “Princess TNT” by Vanity Fair. A court spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions about which concert Alito attended. It’s unclear where the concert was located or how the trip to the venue was funded.
The New York Times reported in 2018 that the princess’s castle in Regensburg, Germany, has become a hub for disgruntled right-wing Catholic elites and cardinals like German cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller.
She, Müller and Brian S. Brown, a prominent anti-LGBTQ+ rights activist, visited Alito and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh at the Supreme Court in 2019, according to a photo Brown posted on Twitter, now known as X.
Alito reported three honorary unpaid positions at Catholic University School of Law, Duke University School of Law’s Bolch Institute and the Franciscan Monastery for the Holy Land. He did not teach, as he has done in past years.
Federal ethics law requires top officials from all branches of government, including the nine justices, to file annual disclosures listing investments, gifts, outside income and the source of spousal income so that the public can assess potential conflicts of interest. Officials from the legislative and executive branches have more stringent requirements.
The filings by Supreme Court justices have drawn increased attention from congressional Democrats, court transparency advocates and ethics experts following reports by ProPublica and other media outlets that Thomas for many years did not disclose private jet travel and luxury vacations funded by Dallas billionaire and prominent Republican donor Harlan Crow.
Alito did not report a 2008 visit to a luxury fishing resort in Alaska that ProPublica said was organized by conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo, who had helped Alito win confirmation. Alito flew to the resort on the private jet of a billionaire hedge fund manager who later had cases before the court.
The justice defended the travel in a Wall Street Journal op-ed hours before ProPublica published its story, writing that there was no conflict in accepting hospitality from Paul Singer — whom he called an acquaintance. He also said he wasn’t aware of Singer’s connection to the court, and, therefore, was not obligated to disclose the trip. Alito said he did not report the trip on his financial report because the rules at the time were vague.
In his 2023 report, Thomas disclosed for the first time visits to Bali and a private club in California in 2019 that were paid for by Crow. The justice said he had inadvertently omitted the information in past reports and was amending the record “consistent with the review of prior filings.”
He did not list travel to and from each place and has previously said he does not believe he was required to disclose travel on private planes until a rules clarification that applies to trips starting in 2022. The changes made by the Judicial Conference’s Financial Disclosure Committee require the justices to provide a fuller public accounting of free trips, meals and other gifts they accept from corporations or other organizations.
