(NewsNation) — Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch sold his 40-acre Colorado property to the CEO of Greenberg Traurig, one of the nation’s largest law firms, according to a Politico report.
Gorsuch and his wife closed on the house for $1.825 million a month after his appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, according to the report. Gorsuch, who held a 20% stake in the property, reported making between $250,001 and $500,000 on his federal disclosure forms.
The box for the identity of the purchaser was left blank.
This issue, Politico’s investigative correspondent says, is nothing is enforceable.
“Yes, they (SCOTUS) have an ethics code. But that code, unlike other branches in our government, unlike Congress, unlike the executive branch is not enforceable. There’s no enforcement mechanism. There’s no body to enforce it, unlike most other Western countries when it comes to their highest court,” said Politico’s Heidi Przybyla.
“The question here is about disclosure. The question also is about recusal and there’s other cases like this in terms of recusal that have created controversy in the past,” Przybyla added.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has also come under fire recently after a ProPublica investigation revealed he had been accepting lavish vacations and perks from a billionaire Republican donor for decades.
In Gorsuch’s case, Greenberg Traurig has been involved in at least 22 cases presented to the court. In the 12 cases where Gorsuch’s opinion is recorded, he has sided in favor of the Greenberg Traurig client eight times and against them four times.
In light of the ProPublica report on Thomas, the Senate Judiciary Committee has invited Supreme Court Justice John Roberts to testify on the ethics surrounding Supreme Court justices.