WASHINGTON — A U.S. Supreme Court official said he sees no indication Justice Samuel Alito violated ethics rules after a New York Times story said a 2014 dinner party at the justice’s home allegedly produced a leak about the outcome of a major case over religious rights and contraceptives.
In a letter to two Democratic lawmakers, Supreme Court Legal Counsel Ethan Torrey repeated Alito’s statement that neither he nor his wife disclosed the outcome of the case or his authorship of the opinion. Torrey wrote that justices are allowed to maintain normal friendships.
“There is nothing to suggest that Justice Alito’s actions violated ethics standards,” Torrey wrote to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Representative Hank Johnson of Georgia. The two had written to the court the day after the Times story.
