Annual financial disclosure reports show one Oklahoma federal judge received plane tickets to New York from a long-time friend. Another was given tickets to see “To Kill a Mockingbird” by a family friend and eight judges were reimbursed by universities or organizations for events across the country.
Those reimbursements and gifts are not incriminating, but the disclosure website includes gaps of more than a year.
Most reports from 2020 onward have been posted online, but the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts hasn’t uploaded five Oklahoma judges’ 2025 filings. And one judge’s financial disclosure reports dating back to 2022 are unavailable. A spokesperson from the office said the reports will be posted by the November 12 deadline, but Gabe Roth has his doubts.
Roth, the executive director of Fix the Court, said the administrative office has struggled to keep up with timely posting since the act was signed. Around this time last year, only 50% of the nation’s judiciary financial reports were posted. This year, 30% are still missing.
“All individuals, including judges, are terrible at gauging their own biases,” Roth said. “So it’s important to have some sort of public reporting mechanism so that both we the public and anyone who enters their courtroom has a sense of what their biases or what their entanglements might be.”
How Financial Disclosure Works
In 2022, President Joe Biden signed the Courthouse Ethics and Transparency Act, which requires all federal judges to file and post their financial disclosure reports online.
The act allowed the public to access and download any federal judge’s annual financial disclosures after 2020 — if the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts posted them.
To review filings from before 2020, someone would have to request them and wait. The judge in question would be notified and allowed time to request redaction before the filing is released.
Every year, federal judges have to submit their financial disclosure reports to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. The reports include any gifts received, reimbursements, positions held, stocks and other sources of income.
Judges must also submit periodic transaction reports if they make any purchase, sale, or exchange of more than $1,000.
The first filing deadline is May 15 and those reports are supposed to be posted by August 13. Judges can ask for a 90-day filing extension, but the administrative office does not track which judges have extensions or why.
The second deadline is quickly approaching on November 12 and Charles Hall, a spokesperson for the office, said they are on track to have posted more than 90% of disclosures by the deadline.
But Fix the Court’s most recent data collection from Nov. 4 shows more than 700 missing filings from the past three years. From 2023, 168 disclosures are missing, 238 are missing from 2024, and 389 are missing from 2025.
Some of the filings may be missing from the website due to the redaction process. Redactions are typically requested for parts of a report when they may endanger the judge or their family.
If a judge were to be a member of a civic club that meets at the same time and place every week, they might have that redacted if they are experiencing stalking or harassment to prevent their location from being disclosed.
“The law that passed that required the disclosures to be put on the internet doesn’t have any teeth. It doesn’t have any enforcement mechanism.”
Gabe Roth, executive director, Fix the Court
If a judge wants part of their report redacted, the filing must undergo a review that takes time because it goes back and forth between the judicial conference, the United States Marshals Service, and the judge before approval.
“They have to approve the redactions, and this is a judge’s 75th, if not 750th priority,” Roth said. “Every judge in the country is overworked.”
If the redacted item appears in previous filings, the office removes all filings from the website until all the redactions have been made. There is no established timeline for when the redacted filings must be reposted.
“The law that passed that required the disclosures to be put on the internet doesn’t have any teeth,” Roth said. “It doesn’t have any enforcement mechanism.”
While judges can be fined for submitting their disclosures late, the office faces no repercussions for late posting.
Why it Matters
Oklahoma federal judges’ financial reports weren’t rife with lavish gifts like the ones found missing from Justice Clarence Thomas’ filings, but timely access to those reports gives the public the power to determine whether a judge is working ethically.
“Clarence Thomas’ ethical breaches are so far beyond the pale they can’t be understood,” former Oklahoma Attorney General and U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Robert Henry said.
“They’re absolutely essential to federal judges, but they’re an absolute pain in the posterior,” he said.
He said filing a financial disclosure can be described the same way Listerine was when it first hit the market: it’s the taste judges love to hate.
The disclosures can take a long time if a judge has many investments or needs to make redactions. But ultimately, they serve as the mechanism to prevent misconduct and preserve the judiciary’s independence, Henry said.
“Who will guard the guardians?” Henry asked.
The public can guard the judicial guardians by accessing the financial disclosure report website.
“The fact that the judiciary hasn’t done a great job in ensuring that 100% of the disclosures are posted on time is a bit upsetting,” Roth said. “But, you know, hopefully we’re getting to a place where it’s getting better, not worse.”
Brenna Witchey is a reporting intern at Oklahoma Watch. Contact her at bwitchey@oklahomawatch.org.
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