Four Recusals in Five Days. Same Judge.

On Monday, April 20, 2026, the Supreme Court released its regular order list. Buried in it, three times, was the same sentence: "Justice Alito took no part in the consideration or decision." Two Johnson & Johnson petitions. One sealed veteran's motion. No reason given for any of them.

Three days earlier, the Court had handed down Chevron v. Plaquemines Parish, an 8-0 ruling that let oil companies drag Louisiana's coastal-damage lawsuits out of state court. The opinion's last line: "Justice Alito took no part in the decision of this case." He had ConocoPhillips stock, and a ConocoPhillips subsidiary was a party.

So that's four recusals in five days, all traceable to one man's brokerage account. That's weird. Here's the part that's the system.

Seven of nine justices figured this out years ago. They hold index funds and mutual funds. You cannot be conflicted out of a case by the S&P 500. Only two justices still hold individual stock: Roberts, who has sold down to a couple of positions, and Alito, who holds a couple dozen.

The Court's answer, in February, was software. Starting March 16, briefs must list corporate parties with stock tickers so a program can flag conflicts. Fix the Court's Gabe Roth put the real fix in one sentence: "Public service requires certain sacrifices in the name of ethics, and going stock-free should be one of them." Alito chose the software over the sacrifice.

The Chevron recusal was not clean. Alito sat through the cert stage. Burlington Resources, ConocoPhillips's subsidiary, withdrew from the petition, and Alito stayed on. Then, per Bloomberg Law on January 8, 2026, "later briefing noted that Burlington remained a party in the district" court. Alito recused four days before argument, months after he had already voted on whether to take the case.

That is the pattern. The conflict was on his own form the whole time. The Court caught it because a lawyer wrote a footnote.

The April 20 recusals came with no explanation at all. The Court does not say why. BTP's read: his disclosure lists Kenvue, the consumer-health company Johnson & Johnson spun off in 2023, and one of the two petitions was filed by Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc. That is inference, not a finding, and it should not have to be. The three liberal justices cite the specific Code provision when they step aside. Alito does not.

Here is the case that matters. Suncor v. Boulder County, No. 25-170, argued October 5, 2026, will decide whether a city can sue oil companies in state court for climate damage. About two dozen similar suits are waiting on it.

In April 2023, when the same companies brought the same fight to the Court, the docket reads: "Justice Alito took no part." On February 23, 2026, the Court granted cert in the new petition. No recusal note. Same companies. Same justice. Same seven fossil-fuel stocks.

When watchdogs asked why, the Court's spokesperson told NBC News that "Justice Alito does not have a financial interest in any party" and his "recusal is not required." Narrowly true: he does not own Exxon or Suncor stock. He owns ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66, and a high-dividend fund whose third-largest holding is Exxon. If Boulder loses, every oil major's litigation risk drops, and his portfolio goes up with it.

The statute, 28 U.S.C. 455, has two tests. One is a direct financial interest in a party. The other is whether "impartiality might reasonably be questioned." The Court answered the first and skipped the second. That's not a legal analysis. That's a man reading the rulebook for the clause that lets him play.

What is alleged, and only alleged: the May 12 coalition letter reports that Paul Singer's Elliott Management holds more than $2.3 billion in Suncor stock. Singer is the billionaire whose private jet flew Alito to Alaska, a trip Alito did not disclose. BTP has not verified the Suncor stake against a filing. But the Senate Judiciary Committee could, in an afternoon, if it wanted to.

I spent twenty years around people with power deciding, in real time, which rules were rules and which were suggestions. The tell was never the decision. It was the explanation. The official who cites the provision is bound by it. The one who says "not required" is telling you he already knows what he wants.

Alito recuses when a party's name matches a ticker because that is mechanical and embarrassing to miss. He refuses when the conflict is structural because structural conflicts require judgment, and he trusts his own. That is the psychology: not corruption in the envelope sense, but a man who has held the same stocks for twenty years and cannot imagine that his stocks have opinions.

You feel this in the boring places. A Louisiana parish trying to make an oil company pay for a coastline that is gone. A city in Colorado trying to recover wildfire and flood costs. Those cases now run through a court where one vote holds a position on the outcome and has decided, by himself, that it doesn't count.

Forward this to one person who thinks Supreme Court ethics is an abstraction, and ask them to read the April 20 order list.

Burn Notice: A justice who recuses only when the ticker matches the caption has not adopted an ethics rule; he has adopted a search function.

— Michael

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