US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has been revealed to have used her position as a Justice and her staff of federal government employees for personal financial gain. Members of her staff drove sales of Sotomayor’s book, pressuring libraries and others to order more, which produced royalty income for the associate justice. The revelations about Sotomayor came from an Associated Press review of tens of thousands of pages and more than a hundred open records requests to public institutions.
AP reports the Supreme Court released a statement, saying of Sotomayor, "When she is invited to participate in a book program, Chambers staff recommends the number of books based on the size of the audience so as not to disappoint attendees who may anticipate books being available at an event, and they will put colleges or universities in touch with the Justice's publisher when asked to do so." The emails, however, tell a different story.
Coffee Is for Closers!
Among the disturbing evidence reproduced by AP are the emails of Anh Le, a Court employee and Sotomayor's assistant, that drum up book sales. Le wrote to Lyndsey Runyan, then a librarian for a county library in Portland, OR: "250 books is definitely not enough." It looks like there was a previous communication in which Le, from Sotomayor's chambers, indicated she was not happy about the number of books purchased for an event with the justice. Runyan replied, writing:
“In terms of the book seller and having enough books on stock, they are working with Lara Phan at Penguin. I know they ordered 250 of Just Ask. I am not sure how many of the other books were ordered. Maybe you should communicate with Lara and the book sellers about your concerns?”
Le was having none of it. She responded to Runyan that she had just gotten off the phone with Phan and "[f]or an event with 1000 people and they have to have a copy of Just Ask to get into the line, 250 books is definitely not enough." Le added that she just tried calling and asked if Runyan would "[p]lease let me know when you are back at your desk."
An Aide to Sotomayor
The trouble is that Le is paid by the US Treasury and the taxpayers who fund it to assist Sotomayor in fulfilling her duties as an associate justice of the Supreme Court. While we can all agree wide latitude is needed to discern what tasks might be appropriate for such a job, running a high-pressure operation to gin up book sales can't be included.
Penguin Press imprint Philomel Books released Just Ask!: Be Different, Be Brave, Be You in 2019. The 32-page book is one of several authored by Sotomayor. It is not a legal treatise on a matter of constitutional import or urgency. Instead, it's a picture book for children aged 4-7 that "celebrates the different abilities kids (and people of all ages) have. Using her own experience as a child who was diagnosed with diabetes, Justice Sotomayor writes about children with all sorts of challenges -- and looks at the special powers those kids have as well."
While the volume is now available at the world's largest book peddler for $10.99, a contemporaneous press account of Sotomayor's event suggests it was then priced at a much steeper $17.99. Book sales translate directly into income for the jurist. Her most recent financial disclosure revealed she took in more than $150,000 from book royalties and rights payments in 2022 alone.
Ice Station Zebra Associates
Catherine Pugh (Photo by Paul Marotta/Getty Images)
Scandals over book sales are not new. Catherine Pugh, the former Democrat mayor of Baltimore, was sentenced to federal prison in 2020 for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud the government, and two counts of tax evasion. She was paid $800,000 in a scheme for books that were never delivered, mainly from state agencies and contractors. Perhaps the most prominent case was when then-Speaker of the House Jim Wright, a Texas Democrat, had to resign in disgrace in 1989 after engineered fraudulent book-buying transactions to mask direct payments.
It remains to be seen all the laws and regulations Sotomayor may have violated and what, if any, consequences she may suffer for her actions. Justice Clarence Thomas was recently pressured to resign for accepting the gift of luxury travel accommodations offered by a friend - and his accusers included prominent members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which reviews Supreme Court nominations. By comparison, Sotomayor's campaign of individual enrichment pushed by court employees against taxpayer-funded state and local institutions seems more grave, and by no small margin. As the report said, "none of the justices has as forcefully leveraged publicly sponsored travel to boost book sales as has Sotomayor, according to emails and other records reviewed by the AP.”
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