I'm getting a lot of Tweets at me in response to the recent articles (such as that linked to below) claiming that Justice Kennedy had an undisclosed conflict of interest because his son once worked with Trump. A few thoughts. esquire.com/news-politics/…
First, I gather most of the reporting is on facts that were known for years, such as Kennedy's son's position at Deutsche Bank, Trump's using the bank, the fact that Trump knew the Justice's son, etc.
As far as I can tell, the new information is a claim that Trump didn't just know the Justice's son, but that the Justice's son "worked closely with Mr. Trump," at least according to two people. If so, I would rather than be public earlier than now.
But I don't quite see why that is a major conflict of interest. Justices not only have family members who may have once worked with future Presidents -- Justices have themselves often worked for Presidents whose work they later reviewed.
In fact, every Justice owes his or her own job on the Supreme Court to a President whose work the Justice then reviews. For example, Elena Kagan worked for Obama, and then owed Obama her position on the Supreme Court; she then started ruling on laws signed by Obama.
I take the conflict issue to be whether a Justice worked on a case in a prior capacity, not whether they (or less directly, a family member) once worked for someone who has a role in a case. Or so it seems to me.
