Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Samuel Alito poses for an official portrait in the East Conference Room of the Supreme Court building October 7, 2022 in Washington, DC.
Alex Wong | Getty Images
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito sold shares of the beer giant Anheuser-Busch InBev as conservatives abandoned brewer Bud Light over its partnership with a transgender social media influencer.
On the same day that Alito sold Anheuser-Busch, he then purchased the same amount of stock in Molson Coorsa company that has itself faced political boycotts, the filing shows.
These transactions have given rise to new accusations that Alito, one of six conservatives on the high court, engages or aligns with partisan politics, despite a recently adopted code of conduct that directs justices to “s ‘abstain from all political activity’.
Alito sold between $1,000 and $15,000 worth of AB InBev stock on August 14, 2023, according to a financial disclosure filing with the court that was recently made viewable through a federal court database.
A periodic transaction report for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
Courtesy: United States Courts
The Supreme Court did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on Alito’s trading report or the timing of his stock trading activities.
At the time of Alito’s stock sale, Anheuser-Busch was still grappling with a months-long campaign to boycott Bud Light after the company partnered with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in a social media campaign in April 2023.
The partnership put the world’s largest beer brewer at the center of a broader fight for transgender rights and acceptance in the United States — and fueled a backlash from conservatives and Mulvaney supporters , who was reportedly stalked and threatened with death amid the controversy.
In May 2023, Modelo replaced Bud Light as the best-selling beer in the United States. Data from that time showed that Bud Light sales fell nearly 25% year over year.
AB InBev nonetheless reported a better-than-expected profit in the second quarter of 2023 and appears to have emerged virtually unscathed from the boycott efforts in May.
Alito’s move to Coors is also notable in light of the company’s history of facing boycotts from Mexican Americans, Blacks, and the LGBTQ community due to its workplace practices. work.
Alito’s investment activities came to light as the associate justice faces a wave of criticism following a New York Times report that an upside-down American flag – a symbol used by pro-conspiracy supporters -Trump “Stop the Steal” – was deployed on his house in the days following the January 6, 2021 riot at the United States Capitol.
Alito has denied any involvement in the flag toppling. He told the Times that his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, did so “briefly” “in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on street signs.”
But the statement did not assuage Alito’s critics, some of whom are now demanding he explain the timing of the Anheuser-Busch sale.
“This sale, given the timing and in the manner of a toppled flag, can be interpreted as a political statement,” said Gabe Roth, executive director of the nonprofit court watchdog group Fix the Court, in an e -email addressed to CNBC.
“I think the Supreme Court justices should refrain from making even indirect political statements, or even those that their spouses or their brokers might have made on their property or in their brokerage accounts, respectively,” said Roth.
Roth pointed out that the brewing companies in question have no pending Supreme Court cases that he can think of.
But if Alito or his broker were actually responding to the Bud Light boycott or the surrounding culture war, Roth said, then the stock sale “says more about the justice’s media influence and where it fits in.” confers on the political spectrum.
“If the sale was a response to the Bud Light controversy last year, he might have a problem with the appearance of bias when it comes to future court cases related to trans rights,” Roth said.
The settlement notice was one of several notices posted last week in the federal judiciary’s financial disclosure reporting database and then removed without explanation. Roth said their demise was “perhaps due to the newness of the system.” The reports reappeared in the database Monday evening.
The filings were first reported Monday by the legal blog Law Dork.
The court is expected to rule soon on whether former President Donald Trump will receive presidential immunity from criminal charges related to his efforts to overturn his loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
The court, which holds a six-three conservative majority after Trump appointed three justices, is not expected to grant Trump’s blanket immunity under which a former president cannot be charged for official acts he performs in office. exercise of his functions. But the justices during oral arguments in April appeared skeptical of parts of federal prosecutors’ case against Trump.
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