By: E&P Staff For two days, media outlets have briefly reported that new U.S. Supreme Court nominee, Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., ruled in a 2002 case in favor of the Vanguard mutual fund company at a time when he owned more than $390,000 in Vanguard funds. The Boston Globe today published the first in-depth look at the matter.
Among other things, Globe reporters Sarah Schweitzer and Michael Kranish revealed that court records show that Alito later complained about an effort to remove him from the case -- despite an earlier promise to recuse himself from cases involving the company.
It's a local story for the Globe, as the case involves a nearby Jamaica Plain woman still fighting to win back assets of her late husband's individual retirement accounts, which had been frozen by Vanguard after a court judgment in favor of a former business partner of her husband.
Her lawyer, John G. S. Flym, a retired Northeastern University law professor, said in an interview with the Globe that Alito's ''lack of integrity is so flagrant" in the case that he should be disqualified as a Supreme Court nominee.
His cient, Shanee Maharaj, 50, discovered Alito's ownership of Vanguard shares in 2002 when she requested his financial disclosure forms after he ruled against her appeal. ''I just started seeing Vanguard after Vanguard, and I almost fell to the floor," she told the reporters at the home she shares with a friend. She lost her own home during the lengthy prolonged litigation. ''I just couldn't believe that it could be so blatant."
The Globe reports:
"In 1990, when Alito was seeking US Senate approval for his nomination to be a circuit judge, he said in written answers to a questionnaire that he would disqualify himself from ''any cases involving the Vanguard companies.'
"After Alito ruled in Vanguard's favor in the Maharaj case, he complained about her efforts to vacate his decision and remove him from the case, writing to the chief administrative judge of the federal appeals court on which he sat in 2003: ''I do not believe that I am required to disqualify myself based on my ownership of the mutual fund shares.'
"The White House, asked about the seeming contradiction between Alito's two statements, said that Alito was put on the case due to an error by a computer system that should have warned that he was taking a Vanguard-related case, because the investments were listed in the database.
"Asked why Alito did not recuse himself after learning that it involved Vanguard, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino criticized those who are raising questions about Alito's actions....
"Yesterday, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, raised the case during a meeting with Alito. A Leahy aide said the senator plans to ask Alito more questions about the matter during confirmation hearings."
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