In addition to excerpts from Ilya Shapiro’s Wall Street Journal op-ed, I am pleased to link to Life magazine’s May 9, 1969 article (pp. 32-37) on Justice Fortas’s connections to “financial manipulator” Louis Wolfson. That article is widely credited with leading to calls for Fortas’s impeachment and to his resignation. Here are some excerpts from the article (italics in original; underlining added):
While a member of the High Court, Fortas was paid $20,000 by the Wolfson Family Foundation, a tax-free charitable foundation set up by Wolfson and his brothers. Ostensibly, Justice Fortas was being paid to advise the foundation on ways to use its funds for charitable, educational and civil rights projects. Whatever services he may or may not have rendered in this respect, Justice Fortas’ name was being dropped in strategic places by Wolfson and [his associate Buddy] Gerbert in their effort to stay out of prison on the securities charge. That this was being done without his knowledge does not change the fact that his acceptance of the money, and other actions, made the name-dropping effective.
Justice Fortas ultimately refunded the money to the foundation—but not until nearly a year after receiving it. By that time Wolfson and Gerbert had been twice indicted on federal criminal charges….
Fortas continued to advise and do favors for President Johnson after he took his seat on the Supreme Court in October, 1965….
There were accusations [during Fortas’s unsuccessful nomination to be Chief Justice in 1968] that Justice Fortas had been functioning as a conduit for presidential wrath against friends who opposed his policies; that Fortas had tried to arrange appointments to the State Department and the federal bench; that he had functioned as a presidential consultant on various problems and position papers….
[On Fortas’s “overlarge” compensation for lectures at American University:] Fortas’ former law partner, Paul Porter, had solicited funds for the lectures from five of his or Fortas’ influential friends, [including one] whose son had been helped by Porter after an indictment for mail fraud….
In February [1966], Alexander Rittmaster, a Wolfson business associate who later was to be indicted with him, asked Wolfson what he was doing about the Securities and Exchange Commission’s investigation, then at least 15 months in progress. Rittmaster said Wolfson told him it was going to be taken care of “at the top,” and that the matter wouldn’t get out of Washington. He also said that Fortas was joining the foundation.
On June 10, [1966,] the SEC forwarded to [U.S. Attorney Robert Morgenthau in New York] another report, also classified, recommending prosecution of Wolfson…. Government lawyers believe [Wolfson] learned almost immediately that the criminal reference reports had been forwarded to the Justice Department…. On June 14, the day after the Supreme Court had gone into a week’s recess, Justice Fortas flew to Jacksonville [and stayed at] Wolfson’s elegant Harbor View Farm near Ocala [for two nights.] …
Later that month … Wolfson told Rittmaster—according to Rittmaster—that Fortas was “furious” because the SEC had reneged on a pledge to give the Wolfson group another hearing before forwarding a criminal reference report. Rittmaster said he was further reassured by Gerbert that there was no need to worry, that Fortas had been at the horse farm to discuss the SEC matter and that it was to be taken care of.
Rittmaster told government investigators [that] Gerbert had told him that he—Gerbert—had picked up Fortas at the airport and driven him to the Wolfson farm, and that Fortas had discussed the SEC problem.
According to the Life article, Fortas claimed that his “only association” with Wolfson, apart from his then-law firm’s representation of Wolfson beginning in May or June 1965, “had to do with conversations beginning when I first met him in 1965, in which he told me of the program of the Wolfson Family Foundation.” Fortas’s claim is difficult to reconcile with this extraordinary statement by Fortas in 1970, secretly recorded by Wolfson, recounting his reaction when Wolfson went to prison:
My heart was full of grief and affection … all in my heart—I’d give anything to protect Lou Wolfson.