Perjury

not. Update. Never mind. see below.

Given Judge Samuel Alito's testimony yesterday should the question be whether his nomination to the Supreme Court should be approved or whether he should be impeached.

According to Liberal Oasis (via firedoglake) he twice committed perjury.

1. As if the ROTC story about his membership in Concerned Alumni of Princeton (see below) wasn't thin enough, turns out that ROTC had already been brought back to Princeton the same year Alito became an alumni.

2. On the Vanguard case, where Alito didn't recuse himself despite telling the Senate he would in cases involving the mutual fund company:

Alito said today, "I did recuse myself, and ... I asked that the original decision ... be vacated."

If the second quote is accurate and the meaning is not distorted by ellipses, Judge Alito is demonstrably a felon.

I'm looking for the transcript

Google likes the same pun I like. It gave me
"Alito cattivo? www.bicarbonato.it"

OK here is the transcript without an ellipses

ALITO: She represented herself initially, and we take those very seriously. We give those just as much consideration, in fact more consideration in many respects than we do with the cases without lawyers because we take into account that somebody who is representing himself or herself can't be expected to comply with all the legal technicalities.

But, for whatever reason, our court system for handling the monitoring of recusals in these pro se cases is different from the system that we use in the cases with lawyers, and maybe that's because recusal issues don't come up very often in pro se cases.

But in any event, in a case with a lawyer, before the case is ever sent to us, we receive what are known as clearance sheets, and those are -- it's a sheet of -- it's a stack of papers, and it lists all the cases that the clerk's office is thinking of sending to us. It lists the parties in each case, and it lists the lawyers in each case, and it says, "Do you need to recuse yourself in any of these cases?"

And this is the time when the judges -- and this is the time when I focus on the issue of recusal. And I look at each case, I look at the parties, I look at the lawyers, and I ask myself, "Is there a reason why I should not participate in the case?"

Now, because this case, the Monga case, was a pro se case, it didn't come to me with clearance sheets. I just received the briefs, and it had been through our staff attorney's office.

They take a first look at the pro se cases, and they try to make sure -- they try to translate the pro se arguments into the sort of legal arguments that lawyers would make, to help the pro se litigants. And they give us a recommended disposition and a draft opinion.

And when this came to me, I just didn't focus on the issue of recusal. And I sat on the initial appeal in the case.

ALITO: And then after the case was decided, I received a recusal motion. And I was quite concerned because I take my ethical responsibilities very seriously.

So I looked into the question of whether I was required, under the code, because I just wanted to see where the law was on this. Was I required, under the code of conduct, to recuse myself in this case?

And it seemed to me that I was not. And a number of legal experts, experts on legal ethics, have now looked into this question, and their conclusion is: No, I was not required to recuse. But I didn't stand on that because of my own personal policy of going beyond what the code requires.

So, I did recuse myself. And, not only that, I asked that the original decision in the case be vacated -- that is, wiped off the books -- and that the losing party in the case, the appellant, Ms. Monga, be given an entirely new appeal before an entirely new panel.

I think that this implies that Judge Alito should not wear a robe but should rather wear an orange jump suit. I suppose it is possible that his claims are true. There is no doubt that this can be determined. I, like liberal oasis, rely on this.

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." Boston Globe November 3 2005

I guess the Globe story is not proof that Alito committed perjury. It is clear that Alito's testimony was fairly quoted by liberal oasis, but it is not clear that his communication with the chief administrative judge was fairly quoted by the Globe. I think that judge Anthony Joseph Scirica should be called to testify about what Alito really said and wrote to him.

Update: OK I just finished checking and the Globe was unfair to Alito, at least according to Forbes " After the complaint, Alito wrote the chief judge of the 3rd Circuit that he did not believe he was required to disqualify himself but he would voluntarily step aside."

Silly me (and liberaloasis) we should know not to trust the Globe. The original issue is still very damaging to Alito. He agreed to step down only after being called on the conflict by the plaintiff who took the extraordinary step of requesting his financial disclosure forms. He did break his sworn promise to the Senate judiciary committee and he has changed his story about why he did so. However, he did not recently commit perjury when he claimed he recused himself.

The at first apparently less solid case for perjury based on the CAP excuse is actually stronger. Alito claims that he has no recollection of membership in CAP and that he recalls why he joined. His claim about why he joined is demonstrably false. Not enough to send him to jail but plenty to keep him off the Supreme Court, and I think, to impeach him.

I guess it depends on what the definition of "Alumni" is.