Philip Alito, the son of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, “quietly landed a political appointee job as a lawyer” in Donald Trump’s Treasury Department in the early weeks of the second Trump administration, NOTUS has reported. Yet he is not mentioned on the department’s website and “his three professional bar listings are outdated or incorrectly list previous employers.”
It seems pretty clear that Philip Alito was hired for political reasons. “His exact role was still being sorted during his first few weeks there as senior officials rearranged professional responsibilities,” a source told NOTUS. Another said, “There’s no doubt he got that position because of who he is.”
The younger Alito works in the office providing legal advice to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. That seems pretty convenient for a president who might be wondering if the Supreme Court would be OK if he grabbed about $2 billion from that department for a slush fund, donchathink?
Treasury’s chief legal officer, Brian Morrisey, resigned within hours of the slush fund’s unveiling. But not Philip Alito. Maybe he had a chat with his MAGA Daddy judge or maybe he just knew that Daddy would greenlight just about any corruption Felon Trump would engage in.
“Potential conflicts of interest abound going forward,” NOTUS noted, specifically citing legal challenges to the slush fund that may arrive at the Supreme Court.
If past behavior is any guide, any conflicts will likely be ignored or pretended not to exist - just like Clarence Thomas’ conflicts over his wife’s politicking and GOP-donor gifts are pretended away. NOTUS noted that the Treasury Department never disclosed Philip Alito’s employment in court documents when it defended Trump’s tariffs at the Supreme Court and Daddy Alito did not recuse himself from the case. Instead, he dissented from the ruling against Trump.
A Treasury Department spokesman told NOTUS, “As a matter of both professional and personal judgment, Phil does not counsel on any matters reasonably expected before the Supreme Court. Like all attorneys in the Office of the General Counsel, Phil is in compliance with all applicable ethical obligations.”
A Supreme Court public information officer said Justice Alito did not recuse himself because his son “has not worked on any matter related to the tariffs imposed by the federal government.”
Considering that Justice Samuel Alito had Trump insurrection-supporting flags flying at his houses and justified his refusal to recuse himself from Jan. 6 cases by blaming his wife, there is no reason to expect he’ll recuse himself from any Trump Slush Fund or Treasury Department cases, either.
