To the editor: One thing I simply don’t get is why politicians — from L.A. Metropolis Council members to Supreme Courtroom justices resembling Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. — appear to have a driving want for presents.
When ethics teams foyer for tighter restrictions and even guidelines, there may be at all times pushback. If you need the job, simply don’t settle for any presents apart from from speedy members of the family. What’s so robust about that? While you depart workplace you could be showered with presents and honoraria.
Each Thomas and Alito say they requested round relating to taking lavish presents from businessmen. These are the people who find themselves alleged to be the ultimate authorized arbiters within the nation, they usually can’t determine for themselves what on the very least has the looks of a battle of curiosity.
William Elmelund, West Hollywood
..
To the editor: Much like Thomas, Alito has rationalized the unreported acceptance of lots of of 1000’s in “presents” and favors as being mere lodging and leisure actions with pals. His non-public jet journey was justified as filling an in any other case empty seat, as if anybody (me?) might have simply requested for a elevate.
The reality of Alito’s and Thomas’ obvious battle of curiosity is well decided. The Inside Income Service is crystal clear: Using company plane or lodging for private recreation or leisure should be paid for by the executives authorizing or using stated assets.
As a veteran of quite a few company entities with firm plane, I realized this the arduous manner when the corporate offered me a invoice for hitching a journey on a jet.
If you wish to know the reality of this, demand to know the way the justices’ patrons handled the bills. Did they pay for all the pieces personally, or have been the bills charged to their corporations?
If charged off, deducted or reimbursed, then they’re unambiguously for a enterprise goal — the aim of influencing the Supreme Courtroom.
Thomas B. McGrath, Los Angeles
..
To the editor: Supreme Courtroom justices demand the advantage of the doubt in their very own compliance with ethics legal guidelines and guidelines — which is curious on its face with a conservative majority that professes perception within the strict interpretation of the regulation.
However relating to prison justice litigants who come earlier than the court docket, they’re incredulous that errors are made in decrease courts, they usually’re detached to the hostile results of these errors, even when a failure to appropriate a mistake result in incarcerating a factually harmless particular person.
Their self-righteous hypocrisy is contemptible. From the consolation of their lifetime appointments, they set a low bar for themselves, however for these they decide, they require exactitude.
Todd Piccus, Venice
