It’s amazing how associations can condem people, contracts and erode trust. From Antonin Scalia’s obituary:
In 2004, for instance, he went on a duck-hunting trip with Dick Cheney, who was then vice president and a litigant in a case before the court over whether Mr. Cheney would have to reveal who had appeared before his energy task force. When the trip came to light, Justice Scalia issued a 21-page defense of the trip and refused to disqualify himself from the case.
While the political branches can perhaps survive the constant baseless allegations of impropriety that have become the staple of Washington reportage, this court cannot, he wrote. The people must have confidence in the integrity of the justices, and that cannot exist in a system that assumes them to be corruptible by the slightest friendship or favor, and in an atmosphere where the press will be eager to find foot-faults.
And from current day.
A longtime senior official [Richard Lombardi] in the Air Force has been removed from his job by the service secretary after he disclosed that he had not reported his wifes ties to the defense contractor Northrop Grumman before he was selected to be one of the services senior weapons buyers…Lombardi was not a part of the team that selected Northrop Grummans design for the new bomber, Karns said Friday.