Office Hours: What to do about the Supreme Court’s ethical cesspools of Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas?
Friends,
As public trust in the Supreme Court drops to a new low, Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas are pushing back against a firestorm of ethics controversies involving payoffs to them by wealthy Republicans.
When Thomas’s annual financial disclosure was released Thursday — revealing another three private jet trips he accepted last year from real estate magnate and GOP megadonor Harlan Crow and amending several “mistakes” from previous years — Thomas’s personal attorney circulated a six-page statement tearing into “left wing” groups that he said had “weaponized” ethics against Thomas.
“No Justice, Justice Thomas included, should be subjected to such political blood sport,” Thomas’s attorney wrote. “It is painfully obvious that these attacks are motivated by hatred for his judicial philosophy, not by any real belief in any ethical lapses.”
Alito, meanwhile, gave an interview to The Wall Street Journal’s conservative-leaning opinion section, calling recent stories about him “nonsense” and lashing out against the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act, which the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced just one week earlier. (It would require that Supreme Court justices comply with ethical standards as demanding as in other branches of government.)
Alito asserted that “no provision of the Constitution gives [Congress] the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period.”
Ironically, since the constitutionality of that act could eventually come before the court, Alito’s comment about it is itself a breach of judicial ethics.
Meanwhile, his assertion that Congress may not subject the Supreme Court justices to a code of ethics is being used by Republicans to block an inquiry into undisclosed gifts to Alito — another ethical breach, since Alito’s views are impeding a congressional investigation into Alito’s own conduct.
So this week’s Office Hours question: Should Thomas, Alito, and other justices be subject to binding and enforceable ethics rules? And, if so, how?
I find the arrogance of both justices, who in fact are servants of the people, when being held accountable form their actions quite astonishing. They clearly see themselves as far above citizens, almost like royalty. Actually I am sure they feel they are above the law. Their behaviours are the same and Trump and his GOP MAGA elites and theybseem to be reenforcing each other. It is up to the people to hold them accountable now and have the elected legislators remove them from the Court . For this to happen the MAGA dominated GOP has to be outvoted big time in 2024.
John Roberts won't insist because he is likely compromised himself, or vulnerable. The court won't approve it because 6 of them are conservative and unlikely to admit any of them did anything wrong. I am not even sure the three "liberals" would do it. So that leaves congress passing a law, which won't happen if congress is split between the parties. Democrats will vote for it, Republicans won't because it is "their" justices caught with hands in the till. So it comes down to voters. Is it enough of an issue to sway voters one way or the other? Likely not, but if tied to issues like abortion, freedom of the press, and voting rights it just might have some impact. We have to change the make-up of congress before ethics demands will pass.