corrente

Scalia may have accepted gifts from Cheney, a violation of federal law on their duck-hunting trip:

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia traveled as an official guest of Vice President Dick Cheney on a small government jet that served as Air Force Two when the pair came here last month to hunt ducks.

The revelation cast further doubts about whether Scalia can be an impartial judge in Cheney's upcoming case before the Supreme Court, legal ethics experts said. The hunting trip took place just weeks after the high court agreed to take up Cheney's bid to keep secret the details of his energy policy task force.

Several experts in legal ethics questioned whether Scalia should decide the case.

"In my view, this further ratchets it up. If the vice president is the source of generosity, it means Scalia is accepting a gift of some value from a litigant in a case before him," said New York University law professor Stephen Gillers.

"It is not just a trip with a litigant. It's a trip at the expense of the litigant. This is an easy case for stepping aside."

Federal law says that "any justice or judge shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might be questioned."

When asked about the trip last month, Scalia confirmed that he had gone duck hunting with Cheney, but said he did not see a need to withdraw from the case.

"I do not think my impartiality could reasonably be questioned," he said in a written response to The Times.

Except the wording of the statute doens't contain Scalia's weasel word "reasonable":

This week, the justice was asked whether he had traveled to south Louisiana as Cheney's guest or paid for the trip. He refused to comment.

[Local officials] said there were orders prohibiting photographs of those who exited the planes and climbed into the motorcade.

Crony capitalism.