By Annette Meeks
Freedom Foundation of Minnesota Founder and CEO
Lefty organization ProPublica was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for “chronicling Supreme Court justices’ non-disclosures” under the Ethics in Government Act of 1978. The irony of this award was that it was announced the same week that President Biden failed to make disclosures on his holiday travel and visits to the homes of some of the nation’s most prolific lefties.
And, never mind that some of the best legal minds in the country have said that the justices in question followed the letter of the law in filing their annual paperwork regarding exempting gifts and trips that qualify as any “food, lodging, or entertainment received as personal hospitality.”
Apparently there are one set of standards for conservative justices of the Supreme Court and another one for President Biden. The difference is simple: it’s front page news if the report involves a conservative justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
A liberal president? Meh. Not so much.
If you’re like me, I continue to wait for the front page headlines on President Biden’s recent vacation at billionaire climate alarmist Tom Steyer’s million dollar home during a recent trip to Lake Tahoe.
Or what about First Lady Jill Biden’s trip to the 2024 Super Bowl? Who paid for her use of a luxury sky box at that event? But before she could jet off to the Super Bowl, she and the president welcomed the New Year at the beachfront St. Croix home of Bill and Connie Neville. Mr. Neville is the “founder of US Viking software companies” and usually rents out his island home as a VBRO. Huh. Hope it was as nice a home as the Nantucket compound of David Rubenstein, the billionaire hedge fund founder. That’s where they were able to celebrate Thanksgiving, all without reporting these visits.
No one is going to win a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on these trips because it doesn’t fit the narrative of a “corrupt Supreme Court.”
You’ll hear a lot of that in the coming days and weeks – especially from Minnesota U.S. Sen. Tina Flint Smith. She and her ilk are petrified of what may happen with a second Trump presidency. Their only solution? Dilute the power of the courts by allowing President Biden to stack the court by increasing the membership.
Imagine their outcry if, in the waning days of January 2021, President Trump had tried to do the same.