Wall Street Journal pushes back on criticism of Alito op-ed

The Wall Street Journal is dismissing criticism it is facing for publishing Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s op-ed that preemptively refuted the assertions made in a ProPublica article published shortly after.

The ProPublica story, published this week, said Alito may have committed ethical violations by taking a fishing trip with billionaire Paul Singer, failing to disclose the trip and not recusing himself from cases before the court that dealt with Singer’s business interests.

Before the ProPublica story was published, the Journal published Alito’s op-ed, which contained his responses to a series of questions ProPublica had posed to him and said the publication was “misleading its readers.”

“Justice Alito clearly wanted his defense to receive public disclosure in full, not edited piecemeal. We saw ProPublica’s list of 18 questions and had a good idea of where the reporters were going. The story proved us right,” the Journal editorial board wrote in a separate piece published Thursday. “It is also hilarious to be denounced for betraying the media brotherhood for the offense of scooping the competition. This is the same crowd that would prefer if we didn’t exist. Their pearl-clutching reveals the degree of media conformity when it comes to approved progressive political targets like Justice Alito.”

ProPublica’s editors told The New York Times they were “surprised” to see Alito’s response run in the Journal.

The Journal, known for regularly featuring right-of-center commentary and criticism in its opinion section and editorials, accused ProPublica on Thursday of drumming up “a non-scandal built on partisan spin intended to harm the Justice and the current Court majority.”

“We are defending the Court because someone has to,” the editorial board wrote. “Someone has to stand up for judicial independence and an institution that is part of the bedrock of our constitutional order.”