Jackson’s financial disclosure reveals additional income in previous years

SCOTUS NEWS

Jackson testifies during the second day of her nomination hearings in March. (Senate Judiciary Committee screenshot)

The court’s newest justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, omitted information regarding reimbursements and teaching income when she filed her 2014 and 2016 financial disclosures as a federal district court judge. On a newly released disclosure form, Jackson wrote that she “inadvertently omitted” the information from the previous years’ forms.

Jackson’s new disclosure form, known as a “nomination filing,” was first revealed by the watchdog group Fix the Court on Wednesday. On it, Jackson noted that she did not report $1,765 she received for teaching a seminar at George Washington University in 2014, nor did she report reimbursement she received for traveling to events at the Aspen Institute and the University of California, Berkeley School of Law in 2016 and 2014.

Jackson also wrote that “some” of her financial disclosures in prior years omitted income that her husband, a physician, received from consulting on medical malpractice cases.

Gabe Roth, the executive director of Fix the Court, said that the group had initially requested the nomination report shortly after Jackson filed it in early March, but did not receive the report until last week. The Senate Judiciary Committee would have had the report when it held hearings for Jackson in late March, Roth said.

The Senate confirmed Jackson on April 7, and she was sworn in to replace Justice Stephen Breyer on June 30.

Federal judges, including Supreme Court justices, are required to file annual financial disclosures that provide basic information about their investments, outside income, and gifts or reimbursements they received. (All of the justices’ 2021 financial disclosures are available here.) As a Supreme Court nominee, Jackson also was required to file the nomination report, which covered the 14 months leading up to her Feb. 25 nomination.

In addition to the omissions of her husband’s consulting income, her George Washington University income, and the two travel reimbursements, Jackson also wrote on the nomination report that she had inadvertently omitted in prior years her membership on several boards (such as the board of directors of the D.C. Circuit’s historical society), as well as college savings plans for her two daughters – which, she wrote, are controlled by their grandparents.

This article was originally published at Howe on the Court.