a The German aristocrat who hosted Samuel Alito at his castle in 2023 has revealed new details about his friendship with the right-wing Supreme Court justice, including that they have a mutual friend who played a key role in J.D. Vance’s conversion to Catholicism.
Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, a one-time party girl turned traditionalist Catholic activist who has come under fire for defending Germany’s far-right politicians, told the Guardian that she first met Alito in Rome (she couldn’t remember what year) and that the two were friends of Dominic Legg, a Washington-based priest and Yale Law graduate. Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, often mentions Legg when talking about his adult conversion to Catholicism.
Alito’s relationship with the 64-year-old aristocrat drew media attention after the Supreme Court revealed in financial disclosure documents last week that he had received $900 worth of concert tickets from the billionaire. Alito calls himself a princess, even though Germany’s aristocracy was officially dissolved after World War I.
She later told German reporters that Alito had overestimated the cost of the tickets, but did not provide details.
Supreme Court justices have previously come under scrutiny for failing to report free private jet travel by wealthy conservative billionaires who had business at the court. The matter, first reported by ProPublica, is part of a broader ethics scandal that has engulfed the Supreme Court in recent years. Justice Alito faced another controversy earlier this year when it was discovered that his family had flown an upside-down flag, the symbol of “Stop the Steal” activists who falsely claim the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, and a second flag on coastal property associated with the Christian nationalist movement.
The revelations about Alito’s free ticket are significant for another reason: They reveal new insights into the apparent personal ties of Alito and his wife, Martha Ann, to European aristocrats with deep roots in international right-wing movements seeking to advance a conservative Catholic agenda.
Her allies in the fray include right-wing nationalist Steve Bannon and ultra-conservative German Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, whom she once called “the Donald Trump of the Catholic Church.” Her inner circle is known for being fiercely critical of Pope Francis, who is viewed by the orthodox and traditionalist wings of the Catholic Church as too liberal.
Legg, who heads the Thomistic Institute in Washington, is a prominent member of the nation’s capital’s elite of traditionalist Catholics, sits on the board of directors of an organization called the Napa Law Institute along with Leonard Leo, a strongman widely seen as using his influence to build a conservative Republican majority on the Supreme Court, and has reportedly recently called on conservative activists to “break the stranglehold of liberals at the core of social influence and power.”
Legg is a Dominican priest who, The New York Times reported, is known for attracting “conservative intellectuals and potential professional converts” like Vance. Legg did not respond to a request for comment.
In an email exchange, von Thurn und Taxis denied that she ever discussed politics, including her judicial opinions, with Justice Alito, who authored the Supreme Court decision that overturned abortion rights in 2022 and argued that religious freedom is under threat in the United States.
“My encounters with Justice Alito and his wife are entirely private in nature. We never discuss politics or religion at the table, as I believe this would limit my chances of making friends,” she said, adding that it would “never occur to (her)” to discuss a “sensitive topic” like abortion with someone she is in close contact with.
Von Thurn und Taxis compared herself to the late Queen Elizabeth II (whose family was of German descent) and said the role of German aristocrats was to unite people and “keep politics out of the salons.” She also claimed in an email that she was unaware that the court decision that overturned abortion rights was called the “Dobbs decision.”
But an examination of Von Thurn und Taxis’ own activities reveals that the woman known as Princess TNT for her fiery personality in her punk days before her conversion to conservative Catholicism had deep political connections that gave her access not only to Supreme Court justices but also to the inside of Donald Trump’s White House.
“This isn’t just about the arrogance of a powerful man already embroiled in a controversial relationship with a billionaire. It’s also about the people he’s dating, choosing to accept extremely expensive concert tickets from women who support far-right politicians who align with her open hostility to abortion rights and marriage equality,” said Lisa Graves, a former deputy assistant attorney general at the U.S. Department of Justice and managing director of Court Accountability.
Graves added, “Their alliance is not surprising, but it is deeply troubling given that Alito has used his position on the Supreme Court to enshrine similar regressive policies into law.”
In an October 2019 speech in Washington, von Thurn und Taxis gave glowing praise to the Trump administration, and personally thanked Leonardo Leo for arranging for Cardinal Mueller, who was accompanying him, to visit the White House and meet with those who directly advise Trump on religious freedom and freedom of speech.
She warned that “they’re going to come after us” if Trump isn’t re-elected, and that “above all” the right to worship is at stake. Democrat Joe Biden, a devout Catholic, later won the 2020 election, but neither he nor another prominent Democratic Catholic politician, Nancy Pelosi, are viewed by traditionalists as true Catholics.
During the trip, von Thurn und Taxis also met and was photographed with Justice Alito, Cardinal Mueller, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Bryan Brown, who was then head of the anti-LGBTQ+ group National Organization for Marriage (NOM), which was actively lobbying the court on gay rights cases at the time, according to a New Yorker report.
In a speech entitled “Threats to Faith and the Family” to the National Conservative Conference in Brussels in April this year, von Thurn und Taxis made a series of complaints about the state of the European family, complaining that “only homosexuals want to get married” while unmarried heterosexual couples choose pets over children.
She also criticized leaders for “continuing to fund the murder of our descendants,” in an apparent reference to guarantees of reproductive rights in Europe, saying it would exacerbate future labor shortages on the continent.
“Does this make sense? Is it like racism? Shouldn’t we have children?” she asked rhetorically, before launching into a eulogy for Hungary, which she said is exceptional for its support for child-rearing families. Hungary’s authoritarian leader, Viktor Orbán, was invited as a guest to the noblewoman’s festival.
She has been known as Princess Thurn und Taxis since the 1980s, when she married Johannes von Thurn und Taxis, born of a family fortune that was head of the Holy Roman Empire’s postal service.
When he died in 1990, she was left with many of his debts. Since his death, she has managed the family’s assets, which are now estimated to be around €3 billion.
Her son, Albert, 12th Duke of Thurn and Taxis, is listed by Forbes and other lists as the world’s youngest billionaire, having first appeared on the list at just eight years old.
She reportedly owns several private banks and various properties, including five castles, and lives in the 500-room St. Emmeram Palace in Regensburg, southern Germany, which dates back to the 1300s, where she hosts an annual summer music festival that Mr. Alito has attended.
She has been called a “far-right networker,” a title she denies applying to her.
She caused controversy this summer by inviting Maximilian Klar, a former leading candidate for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the European Parliament elections, to her festival. Klar enjoyed the premiere of Carmen in the front row and dined afterwards with the Princess and other guests. It was later reported that Klar’s presence caused a commotion, with some guests refusing to sit at the same table as him.
Kula, who describes himself as a traditionalist Catholic with close ties to the Society of St. Pius X, which rejects modern Catholicism (he has worked for the organization as a lawyer in Europe), was forced to resign as leader of the AfD after arguing in an interview with La Repubblica at the end of May that not all SS members were criminals.
Within the AfD, Kula is considered to be part of the party’s most extreme faction (now officially dissolved) and is close to spokesman Götz Kubitschek, whose Institute for National Policy Studies has been labelled “clearly right-wing extremist” by Germany’s domestic intelligence service.
During the controversy over Mr. Klar’s invitation to this summer’s festival, Von Thurn und Taxis’ office said in a statement that the two were “personal friends.” She also denied allegations that Mr. Klar was a right-wing extremist, saying the label was marginalizing actual right-wing extremists.
She has courted controversy for her racist, particularly anti-African, outbursts, her belief that hitting children should be considered a “normal educational tool” and her blaming of the coronavirus on the devil.
In interviews with German media, she denied claims that she was close to the AfD or other far-right groups, and claimed that mainstream parties were “worried because the AfD has a lot of support” – which she suggested meant the party, which currently ranks highly in the polls, had been unfairly smeared as Nazis.