‘A self-created moral crisis’: Democrats criticize Supreme Court’s ethics | court news

A report by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee details new allegations about “lavish gifts” that United States Supreme Court justices received from donors.

The 93-page report, released Saturday, concludes a nearly 20-month investigation led by outgoing Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin.

This builds on previous reporting by news outlet ProPublica that raised questions about potential conflicts of interest in the nation’s highest court.

However, the report claims to reveal trips allegedly taken by Justice Clarence Thomas at the expense of real estate developer Harlan Crow, a prominent supporter of the Republican Party, which have never been previously reported.

While the report also names other judges, it singles out Thomas for special condemnation.

“The number, value, and extravagance of the gifts accepted by Justice Thomas have no comparison in modern American history,” the report said.

Justice Thomas has yet to publicly respond to the report’s allegations.

Prominent Senate Democrats like Durbin have long been pushing the Supreme Court to establish a watertight code of conduct to prevent conflicts of interest and ensure compliance with disclosure mandates.

In their report, Democrats criticized the Supreme Court’s chief justice, conservative John Roberts, for not taking more forceful steps to address obvious ethical lapses.

The report states, “Chief Justice Roberts’ continued reluctance to implement the only viable solution to the Court’s ethics crisis – an enforceable code of conduct – calls on Congress to act to restore public confidence in the nation’s highest court.” Need to be done,” the report said.

It accused the court of failing to deal with an “ethical crisis of its own making”.

In the wake of ProPublica’s investigation, Roberts took steps to enforce the Supreme Court’s ethics rules.

The court never had such a code before. But critics pointed out that the new code, agreed unanimously by judges in November 2023, does not include any means of enforcing its principles or investigating potential violations.

This has further increased public anger. Polling firm Gallup reported on December 17 that confidence in the US judicial system had fallen to record lows, causing it to lag behind other relatively wealthy countries.

Gallup found that 55 percent of residents of countries included in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) expressed confidence in their courts as arbitrators.

However, in the US the number was only 35 percent.

Saturday’s report is likely to contribute to that doubt. The report itself acknowledges the crisis of public confidence.

It says, “The public is now more aware of the extent to which some judges have received leniency and how these judges and their billionaire beneficiaries continue to act with impunity.”

The report specifies that “judges appointed by presidents of both parties” have engaged in ethically questionable behavior. It criticizes left-leaning Justice Sonia Sotomayor for initially failing to disclose travel and accommodations from the University of Rhode Island during a book tour.

However, the report directs some of the sharpest criticism towards Justice Thomas and his conservative colleagues, Samuel Alito and the late Antonin Scalia.

Details of many incidents have already been given elsewhere. For example, reports suggest that Justice Thomas has failed to recuse himself from cases where his wife, conservative activist Ginny Thomas, had a stake in the outcome. The report claims this is a violation of federal law.

ProPublica previously reported details of Thomas’s trips on Crowe’s yacht and private jet, which were likely worth thousands of dollars. But Saturday’s report also highlights two newly-revealed trips to Saranac, New York and New York City in October 2021.

In previous public statements, Thomas has said that he has “always sought to follow disclosure guidelines”. He has also described his outings with Crowe as “family trips” with some of his “dearest friends”.

Another friend of Justice Thomas, lawyer Mark Paoletta, responded to the Democrats’ report on social media.

He accused Democratic senators of “defaming” Justice Thomas and attacking the court, which currently has a six-to-three conservative majority.

“This entire investigation was never about ‘ethics’ but about trying to undermine the Supreme Court,” Paoletta wrote.

“The left has invented different standards to attack judges (and) to pressure them to remove them from cases. It hasn’t worked.”

Earlier this year, in June, Republican senators blocked a Democrat-led bill designed to create an enforcement mechanism for ethics violations at the court, called the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal and Transparency Act .

But Republicans such as Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina questioned the constitutionality of the bill and called it an overreach.

In January, Republicans are set to regain the majority in the Senate, which is currently led by Democrats. Once they do that, they will have control of both houses of Congress.