Investigation into Justice Jackson’s Husband’s Income Raises Concerns

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson faces an ethics complaint. Ethics watchdog says the justice failed to fully disclose husband’s income. This also includes private contributions for a Library of Congress event celebrating Jackson’s investiture into the high court.

This complaint, made through the Center for Renewing America, was reported in a letter to Roslynn Mauskoph, head of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts. The complaint claims that the financial disclosure matters are violations of federal law and could cause Jackson recusal issues in the future.

The letter, written by think tank President Russell Vought, alleges that Jackson “has demonstrated a disturbing trend of not reporting material sources of income and gifts.”

The Center for Renewing America has called on the conference to refer the justice to Attorney General Merrick Garland “for her failure to disclose her husband’s consulting income and open an investigation into the potential private funding of her investiture celebration.”

Vought said Jackson failed to disclose income from medical malpractice consulting fees collected by her surgeon husband, Dr. Patrick Jackson. Justice Jackson also failed to disclose the fees in subsequent filings.

As part of her nomination to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Jackson disclosed the names of two legal medical malpractice consulting clients who paid her husband more than $1,000 in 2011.

However, Jackson “repeatedly” did not disclose the fees on subsequent filings. “It is also troubling that Justice Jackson disclosed two sources of her husband’s medical malpractice consulting work in 2011 and then never disclosed another source despite his having received such income in subsequent years,” Vought said.

The complaint also noted that on the day Jackson was sworn in, “at her request, the Library of Congress hosted a massive invitation-only celebration” featuring several musical performances.

The donations, however, went “unreported” on the justice’s most recent financial disclosure. Federal law requires judicial officers to disclose the value of all gifts received of over $415.11, but the Jackson event “easily cost tens of thousands of dollars, likely even more,” the letter said.

Jackson demonstrated awareness of this same disclosure requirement when she reported other post-investiture gifts such as a $1,200 floral display and $6,580 in designer clothes from Vogue Magazine for a photo shoot.