Neil Gorsuch’s ethics record centers on two episodes nine years apart: an undisclosed real estate buyer discovered shortly after he joined the Court, and a recusal that came only after a conflict became impossible to ignore rather than before. Both point to the same underlying pattern — disclosure and recusal decisions the public only learns about after journalists dig them up, not before.

The Colorado Property Sale

Nine days after Gorsuch was confirmed to the Supreme Court in April 2017, a Colorado property he co-owned through Walden Group LLC sold for between $250,000 and $500,000 in profit. Gorsuch reported the sale and the profit range on his financial disclosure — but left blank the section identifying the buyer. That buyer, CNN and the Washington Post reported, was Brian Duffy, then chief executive of Greenberg Traurig, a major law firm that regularly argues cases before the Supreme Court.

In the years since, Greenberg Traurig has had nearly two dozen cases before the Court, and in the cases where Gorsuch’s vote was recorded, he ruled in favor of Greenberg Traurig’s clients roughly two-thirds of the time. No evidence has shown Duffy personally argued a case in front of Gorsuch, and disclosure rules at the time were genuinely ambiguous about whether identifying a buyer was required for this kind of transaction. But the ambiguity is itself the point: as one ethics-focused outlet put it, Gorsuch’s case shows how easily a justice’s financial dealings with parties who have business before the Court can go undisclosed under rules with no independent verification process.

The Anschutz Recusal — After the Fact

In 2024, Gorsuch recused from Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado, an environmental case over a proposed Utah oil and gas rail line — but only after reporting revealed that billionaire Philip Anschutz, whom Gorsuch represented as outside counsel before joining the bench and who lobbied for Gorsuch’s earlier appointment to the federal appeals court, stood to benefit financially from the ruling. Gorsuch had also co-owned property with senior figures in Anschutz’s business empire and repeatedly spoke at retreats hosted at Anschutz’s private ranch.

The timing is the substantive problem. Slate’s analysis noted that Anschutz Exploration Corporation filed an amicus brief in the case in early September, making the conflict clear well before Gorsuch ultimately stepped aside — meaning the recusal came only once the connection was public and difficult to avoid, not as soon as the conflict became apparent to him. In March 2026, Gorsuch separately declined to participate in the Court’s denial of review in a wetlands case, Glynn Environmental Coalition v. Sea Island Acquisition, without any publicly stated reason — a reminder that the Court’s recusal practice generally offers no explanation even when a justice does step aside.

Zero Independent Review

As with every justice, no independent body reviewed the Duffy transaction or examined whether Gorsuch’s disclosure met the legal standard at the time. The Anschutz recusal happened because reporters connected the dots publicly, not because any internal process flagged the conflict first. The Court’s 2023 code of conduct changes none of this: it has no investigative body and no consequence for a justice who discloses late, incompletely, or not at all.

Why This Matters for Reform

Gorsuch’s record makes the case for disclosure reform specifically: a rule requiring transaction counterparties to be identified without exception, verified independently rather than self-reported, would have surfaced the Duffy connection in 2017 rather than 2023. A binding ethics code with real investigative authority would also remove the current dependence on journalists to catch conflicts before a justice is forced to address them — recusal that only happens after public pressure is not a functioning accountability system, it’s a public-relations response to one.

Sources