Justice Sotomayor Pressured Libraries To Buy Her Books: Report

Justice Sonia Sotomayor's staff has been putting unfair pressure on public institutions that host the justice as a guest lecturer to buy her memoir or her children's books.

Sotomayor has earned at least $3,700,000 selling these materials since she became a Supreme Court justice in 2009.

Record requests from The Associated Press to public institutions 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," Campaign Legal Center general counsel Kedric Payne said. "The problem at the Supreme Court is there’s no one there to say whether this is wrong."

For what it's worth, the Supreme Court has 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.