Democrats and other liberals have been on the warpath against the conservative justices of the Supreme Court, particularly in the wake of decisions that didn’t go their way on affirmative action, religious freedom, and student debt at the end of June. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has been screaming about the conservative justices over ethics as an excuse to target them, talking about Congress subpoenaing or even impeaching them. But as I noted, in her last comments, she gave away the game, prefacing her attack by noting the losses they’d taken in the Court. That’s what this was all about. They would do anything they could to get Justice Clarence Thomas out since he so sticks in their liberal craws, and it’s about how they can grab power over the Court.

If Thomas had done what a new AP report says Justice Sonia Sotomayor did, the Democrats would be parked in front of the Supreme Court now, demanding impeachment, with AOC on the bullhorn leading the charge. The report says that not only were institutions that had her speak prodded to buy her books, but that her Supreme Court staff was also used in the effort.

She has benefited, too — from schools’ purchases of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of the books she has written over the years.

Sotomayor’s staff has often prodded public institutions that have hosted the justice to buy her memoir or children’s books, works that have earned her at least $3.7 million since she joined the court in 2009. Details of those events, largely out of public view, were obtained by The Associated Press through more than 100 open records requests to public institutions. The resulting tens of thousands of pages of documents offer a rare look at Sotomayor and her fellow justices beyond their official duties.

In her case, the documents reveal repeated examples of taxpayer-funded court staff performing tasks for the justice’s book ventures, which workers in other branches of government are barred from doing. [….]

Supreme Court staffers have been deeply involved in organizing speaking engagements intended to sell books.

The staff had to put a lot of time into moving those books.

In 2019, as Sotomayor traveled the country to promote her new children’s book, “Just Ask!,” library and community college officials in Portland, Oregon, jumped at the chance to host an event.

They put in long hours and accommodated the shifting requests of Sotomayor’s court staff. Then, as the public cost of hosting the event soared almost tenfold, a Sotomayor aide emailed with a different, urgent concern: She said the organizers did not buy enough copies of the justice’s book, which attendees had to purchase or have on hand in order to meet Sotomayor after her talk.

“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,” the aide, Anh Le, wrote staffers at the Multnomah County Library. “Families purchase multiples and people will be upset if they are unable to get in line because the book required is sold out.”

It was not an isolated push. As Sotomayor prepared for commencement weekend at the University of California, Davis law school, her staff pitched officials there on buying copies of signed books in connection with the event. Before a visit to the University of Wisconsin, the staff suggested a book signing.

At Clemson University in South Carolina, school officials offered to buy 60 signed copies before a 2017 appearance; Sotomayor’s staff noted that most schools order around 400. Michigan State University asked Sotomayor to come to campus and in 2018 spent more than $100,000 on copies of her memoir, “My Beloved World,” to distribute to incoming first-year students. The books were shipped to the Supreme Court, where copies were taken to her chambers by court workers and signed by her before being sent to the school.

On top of that, her publisher has been involved in promoting the books and organizing her talks.

So, paging AOC, where are you to call out this behavior? I’m just going to take a wild guess and predict that we’re not going to hear much from her on this one.

Moreover, I have some questions about the AP report at this point. It’s good work, although it’s information that’s been out there to be discovered for some time. I’m rather curious as to the timing of the drop now, after the court cases that have infuriated liberals. Are they throwing Sotomayor under the bus in the hopes that they can push for moves that somehow restrict the justices? We know that what the Democratic politicians would like is the ability to control the Court because it’s the one arena that they haven’t been able to control.