An ethics complaint has been filed against Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, alleging that she did not fully disclose information about her husband’s income and failed to report private donations made for her investiture celebration at the Library of Congress. This complaint, filed by the Center for Renewing America, a conservative organization, was directed to Roslynn Mauskopf, the head of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts. The complaint suggests that these issues of financial disclosure may violate federal laws and potentially lead to future recusal dilemmas for Jackson, who was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Joe Biden last year.
Russell Vought, President of the think tank and former director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Donald Trump, authored the letter. He accuses Jackson of consistently omitting significant sources of income and gifts in her reports. The letter urges that the justice be referred to Attorney General Merrick Garland for not disclosing her husband Dr. Patrick Jackson’s income from consulting in medical malpractice cases and for a potential investigation into the private funding of her investiture event.
Vought highlights that in her amended disclosure form for 2020, filed during her Supreme Court nomination, Jackson admitted to inadvertently omitting her husband’s consulting income. This omission raises questions, as federal law requires judicial officers to report any spouse’s earned income over $1,000, unless it’s from self-employment, in which case only the nature of the business or profession must be disclosed.
Jackson had previously disclosed two legal medical malpractice consulting clients who paid her husband more than $1,000 in 2011 when she was nominated to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. However, Vought notes that subsequent filings did not disclose these fees. He expresses concern over Jackson’s apparent attempt to categorize her husband’s work as self-employment to avoid disclosing sources of income, arguing that this undermines ethics laws and raises doubts about her impartiality.
Additionally, the complaint points out that the investiture celebration, privately funded and held at the Library of Congress, was not reported in Jackson’s latest financial disclosure. Federal law mandates the disclosure of the value of all gifts over $415.11, and the costs of the event likely exceeded this threshold. Vought contrasts this with Jackson’s disclosure of other gifts, such as a $1,200 floral display and designer clothes worth $6,580 from Vogue Magazine, to argue that she was aware of the requirement but chose not to comply in this instance.
