‪‘The story smells’: former prosecutor questions Alito’s claim about Alaska flight with GOP billionaire‬

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito pre-emptively took to the Wall Street Journal op-ed page to angrily denounce a ProPublica article revealing billionaire GOP megadonor Paul Singer flew him to Alaska for a luxury fishing trip. Among his defenses of his behavior was that there happened to be an "empty seat" on the luxury plane and he saved taxpayers money by taking it.

But that really doesn't add up as an excuse, pointed out former federal prosecutor Harry Litman on Twitter, for one simple reason: why would taxpayers have paid for Alito to take a vacation in Alaska in the first place?

"Alito says he took seat on Singer’s private plane to save the taxpayers money," wrote Litman. "That assumes that the public would have paid for the commercial flight for his vacation. I know that at least some justices pay for their own personal travel. Much about the story smells like… you know…"

The new story about Alito's Alaska trip, coupled with another story about being flown out to Rome by a right-wing activist group with business before the court, comes amid a series of other stories about improper-looking gifts and transactions the justices have taken.

Justice Clarence Thomas was revealed to have accepted numerous gifts and vacations, and closed a cut-rate real estate deal, with GOP megadonor Harlan Crow. Meanwhile, Chief Justice John Roberts' wife earned $10.3 million in commissions from her work for elite law firms, at least one of which argued a case before the court.

The Supreme Court has faced mounting calls to adopt a binding code of ethics that can force them to recuse from cases when they have conflicting financial interests, as lower court federal judges are already subject to. However, the justices have not done so, and Roberts has defied requests by Senate investigators to testify on the issue.