When Justice Samuel Alito responded earlier this year to reporting on his 2008 decision to accept, and not disclose, a seat on a private jet owned by a billionaire with business before the Supreme Court, his defense was that the seat he occupied “​​would have otherwise been vacant.” At the time, it seemed like the Marie Antoinette–iest legal reasoning ever advanced for taking a costly gift. On Thursday, however, his colleague Clarence Thomas went one better. In filing his delayed 2022 financial disclosure forms, the justice—who has failed to disclose dozens of private flights, luxury vacations, loans, gifts, and several real estate deals for the bulk of his time on the court—belatedly reported three 2022 trips on the private jet of his friend Harlan Crow. The reason for at least one spontaneous outbreak of private jet travel? “Because of increased security risk following the Dobbs opinion leak,” the disclosure notes, “the […]