Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor's staff urged libraries to buy her books

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor's staff has urged public institutions that hosted the justice as a guest lecturer to purchase her memoir or children's books, materials that she has earned at least $3.7 million for since becoming a justice in 2009. 

More than 100 open records requests from The Associated Press to public institutions repeatedly show that Sotomayor's taxpayer-funded staffers performed tasks for her book ventures, which workers in other federal branches are prohibited from doing. However, because the Supreme Court lacks a formal code of conduct, Justice Sotomayor is not restricted like other government officials.

"This is one of the most basic tenets of ethics laws that protects taxpayer dollars from misuse," former deputy chief counsel at the Office of Congressional Ethics and current Campaign Legal Center general counsel Kedric Payne told the wire service on Tuesday. "The problem at the Supreme Court is there’s no one there to say whether this is wrong."

The Supreme Court defended Sotomayor in a statement: "When she is invited to participate in a book program, Chambers staff recommends the number of books based on the size of the audience so as not to disappoint attendees who may anticipate books being available at an event, and they will put colleges or universities in touch with the Justice’s publisher when asked to do so." 

The court also said justices are limited to earning only $30,000 a year for teaching and other outside activities, but money earned from book sales is not included in this. 

The scrutiny surrounding Sotomayor comes as Justice Clarence Thomas is under fire for his friendship with billionaire Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow, who paid for luxury vacations with Thomas.

Madeleine Hubbard is an international correspondent for Just the News. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram.