Inside the personal finances of Ketanji Brown Jackson, Joe Biden's Supreme Court pick
- Insider obtained the most recent financial records on the Supreme Court nominee.
- Jackson reported up to $130,000 in Charles Schwab investment accounts in 2019.
President Joe Biden has nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson to join the Supreme Court.
If confirmed, Jackson would be the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court. She would replace Justice Stephen Breyer, who announced his retirement last month.
Jackson's nomination comes amid high scrutiny over federal judges and whether they have financial investments that could cause potential conflicts of interest.
Insider obtained the most recently available financial disclosure forms for Jackson that were provided by Free Law Project. These financial disclosure forms reveal the outside incomes, past positions and financial investments Jackson has received and made before she was nominated to the Supreme Court.
In 2019, Jackson reported up to $130,000 in Charles Schwab investment accounts, that included a fund that tracks the performance of the S&P 500 and a "small cap index fund." She also held Vanguard index funds that totaled up to $30,000.
The same year, Jackson also sat on the Board of Overseers at Harvard University, which helps the president and senior officers fulfill their responsibilities in managing and leading the university. She also was a board member of Georgetown Day School, according to a 2019 financial disclosure.
Jackson did not report holding any individual stocks in her financial disclosure forms for 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2012.
In 2011 and 2012, Jackson received $3,000 each year for teaching at the George Washington University law school.
Jackson's office declined Insider's request to comment on her financial disclosures and whether she currently owns individual stocks.
Insider was also unable to obtain her financial disclosure forms for 2020. Filings for 2021 are due later this year.
Jackson's appointment comes at a time where more US lawmakers are calling on federal judges to be banned from trading individual stocks as Congress debates on legislative measures that would prohibit stock trading among members of Congress.
"Public officials should remove all conflicts of interest — whether you're at the federal or the state level," Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat of Massachusetts, previously told Insider.
"It's also true whether we're talking about elected officials or sitting judges, or members of the Federal Reserve," Warren said. "The public has a right to know that when people in power make decisions, that they're doing it to advance the best interest of the public, not to advance their own personal financial interests."
Many legal experts say that it is critical to ensure that no one sitting on the Supreme Court has any potential conflicts of interest because the public continues to see the Court has highly partisan.
"The public is paying attention to the Supreme Court in a way that I don't think it has in the past because it has both the perception and the reality of being increasingly partisan," Renee Knake Jefferson, a University of Houston law professor, previously told Insider.
Ethical conflicts among sitting federal judges have been highly scrutinized since The Wall Street Journal published an investigative piece that revealed that more than 130 federal judges broke the law by overseeing cases in which they or their family members had a financial interest.