By Bob Unruh
Just a day after it was reported that the tax-paid staff of Sonia Sotomayor, an Obama-appointed justice on the Supreme Court, has been pressuring schools and libraries to buy her books, a new revelation shows she has gotten rich while being on the court.
Originally published by WND News Service. Used with permission.
OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.
The earlier report confirmed that the taxpayer-funded staff members pushed for organizations where she would speak to buy hundreds, even thousands, of her books, earning Sotomayor a “minimum of $3.7 million since she took her seat on the bench in 2009.”
Now a Fox report bluntly reported she’s seen her wealth “spike” since joining the court.
The report explains that in 2008, her assets included a checking account and a savings account worth between $15,001 and $65,000.
Then Obama nominated her to the high court, and now she’s rolling, established firmly among the “nation’s millionaires,” the report said.
“In 2021, her investments totaled somewhere between $1.5 million and $6.4 million, according to financial disclosure forms. Last year, investments were roughly the same, in between $1.6 million and $6.6 million,” Fox confirmed.
She had been making about $205,000 a year before her promotion from her duties as a federal appeals judge and a teaching gig.
Now she’s getting $285,400 a year from taxpayers.
The report cited her outside deals that make her a lot of money through her books and speaking engagements.
But the report noted that while her publisher, Penguin Random House, has been instrumental in organizing her talks and such, even “pressing public institutions to commit to buying” her publications and “requesting attendees purchase books to obtain tickets,” she has refused to recuse herself from several Supreme Court cases involving Random House.
The earlier report explained, “Prior to a 2019 event in Portland, Oregon, to promote Sotomayor’s children’s book “Just Ask!,” court staff told a public library they had not purchased enough copies—which attendees needed to get in line to meet the justice following her speech.”
“For an event with 1,000 people and they have to have a copy of Just Ask to get into the line, 250 books is definitely not enough,” an aide to Sotomayor, Anh Le, told the staff at the Multnomah County Library, per emails obtained by AP. “Families purchase multiples and people will be upset if they are unable to get in line because the book required is sold out.”
The report added, “When Sotomayor spoke at Michigan State University in 2018, the school spent $110,000 for 11,000 signed copies of ‘My Beloved World,’ her memoir, to give to incoming freshmen. Books were first shipped to the Supreme Court, where they were signed by Sotomayor, the AP reported.”
Mike Davis, of the Article III Project, suggested to Fox that Sotomayor made a “mistake by having her staff sell her books, including what appears as pressure on schools and libraries to buy a minimum number of her books before her speaking engagements.”
The Supreme Court, in a statement after the revelations about Sotomayor’s book-selling strategies, said justices routinely speak to various groups.
But it conceded, “There should be no requirement or suggestion that attendees are required to purchase books in order to attend.”