Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts now has two members of his body whose behavior is compromising the entire reputation of the Court, according to one high-ranking Senate Democrat.
In a recent interview with MSNBC host Katie Tur, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) said the chief justice is in a "very difficult situation" regarding Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas. Whitehouse authored a letter with Senate Judiciary Committee chair Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) on Friday asking Roberts for a meeting to discuss how he plans to address the two conservative judges' "rogue" behavior. The letter specifically calls on Alito to recuse himself from cases the Supreme Court is reviewing in relation to the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and litigating the 2020 election, given his displaying of flags associated with the "Stop the Steal" movement.
"By displaying the upside-down and ‘Appeal to Heaven’ flags outside his homes, Justice Alito actively engaged in political activity, failed to avoid the appearance of impropriety, and failed to act in a manner that promotes public confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary," Durbin and Whitehouse said in a public statement. "He also created reasonable doubt about his impartiality and his ability to fairly discharge his duties in cases related to the 2020 presidential election and January 6th attack on the Capitol. His recusal in these matters is both necessary and required."
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However, Whitehouse told Tur that he also hopes to discuss with Roberts how he plans to address Thomas' repeated failure to disclose expensive luxury gifts from far-right billionaire donors like Harlan Crow. In one instance, Thomas said a six-figure loan from businessman Anthony Welters to buy a luxury recreational vehicle had been resolved, though it wasn't clear whether the loan principal itself had been paid back, or just the interest or if Welters simply forgave the loan. Journalist David Cay Johnston said Thomas may have run afoul of federal lax law by not reporting the possible cancellation of the loan as income.
"He's cut them way too much slack, and they seem to have gone completely rogue. So what he has been doing hasn't been working," Whitehouse said. He added that Alito and Thomas were "violating the rules of the Supreme Court very plainly violating the ethics rules for all federal judges and violating federal laws."
"You just can't put up with that. You wouldn't put up with that in any agency. My God, how about the United States Supreme Court?" Whitehouse said.
Both senators are calling for the passage of the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency (SCERT) Act, which would create an enforceable code of ethics for Supreme Court justices. It would also require justices to explain their recusals publicly, and strengthen transparency rules for when a party with business before the Court has a potential conflict of interest involving a sitting justice.
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Whitehouse said that he hasn't yet gotten a response from Roberts. However, he expects that a meeting will happen soon given that, as chief justice, Roberts is also the chairman of the Judicial Conference. Whitehouse described the Judicial Conference as "a body established by Congress," that "enforces laws passes by Congress."
"He'd be in a peculiar position to say that Congress can't speak to the chairman of an agency it established about how the agency is implementing laws Congress has passed," Whitehouse said. "So I think we'll be able to get by that, and certainly hope so."
"By displaying or permitting the display of prominent symbols of the 'Stop the Steal' campaign outside his homes, Justice Alito clearly created an appearance of impropriety in violation of the Code of Conduct for Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States that all nine justices adopted last year," Sens. Durbin and Whitehouse wrote in their letter to Roberts. "He also created reasonable doubt as to his impartiality in certain proceedings, thereby requiring his disqualification in those proceedings as established by the Code of Conduct and federal law."
Watch Whitehouse's interview below, or by clicking this link.
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