SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
supreme court ethics
Raskin Says Alito Must Recuse After Private Call With Trump
"Alito claims it was to help a former clerk get a job," wrote one legal commentator. "Doesn't matter. Federal law requires Alito now be DISQUALIFIED from the Trump stay petition."
Jan 09, 2025
Following the revelation that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito had a private phone call with Trump the day before Trump's legal team petitioned the Supreme Court to halt his sentencing in his New York "hush money" case, Congressman Jamie Raskin was among those Thursday who called for Alito's recusal from the high profile case.
ABC News first reported the call between Trump and Alito, which took place Tuesday, and that Alito subsequently claimed concerned one of Alito's former law clerks, who is seeking a job in the new administration. "William Levi, one of my former law clerks, asked me to take a call from President-elect Trump regarding his qualifications to serve in a government position," Alito explained to ABC News in a statement.
On Wednesday morning, Trump's legal team filed an emergency request with the Supreme Court to pause his sentencing in New York court on on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection to hush-money payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels.
Alito said that he and Trump did not discuss Trump's emergency request.
Raskin, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, denounced the call as a "breach of judicial ethics" in a statement Thursday, adding "especially when paired with his troubling past partisan ideological activity in favor of Trump, Justice Alito's decision to have a personal phone call with President Trump—who obviously has an active and deeply personal matter before the court—makes clear that he fundamentally misunderstands the basic requirements of judicial ethics or, more likely, believes himself to be above judicial ethics altogether."
Trump's legal team also appealed to the New York Court of Appeals to postpone the sentencing, which was rejected Thursday, a day after a state appeals court in New York also rejected the request. The sentencing is slated to take place on Friday.
Other court watchers also blasted Alito for the phone call.
President of the watchdog Accountable.US Caroline Ciccone urged Alito to recuse himself from all upcoming cases in which Trump is a named party. "In addition, Congress should investigate Alito's—and other justices'—lapses in judicial ethics in order to strengthen the Court's lax code of conduct. Anything less would confirm what so many already fear: that the Court has become overtly political and a playground for the powerful," she wrote.
"Alito claims it was to help a former clerk get a job. Doesn't matter. Federal law requires Alito now be DISQUALIFIED from the Trump stay petition," wrote Tristan Snell, a lawyer and legal commentator, on Wednesday.
This is not the first time that Alito has engendered this type of scrutiny. Last year, following revelations that flags carried by Trump supporters who took part in the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol were seen flying outside Alito's homes, Alito faced calls to recuse himself from a case two cases: one dealing with Trump's claims of presidential immunity and another on the question of whether defendants who participated in the January 6, 2021 attempted insurrection should be charged with obstructing an official proceeding. Alito rejected the calls to step aside.
"Every federal judge and justice knows he or she must avoid situations such as this. Yet Justice Alito did not," said Raskin.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Alito’s Upside-Down Flag Signals That Our Constitutional System Is in Extreme Danger
A breach of this magnitude—in a case that implicates the health of our democratic institutions, by a justice that hasn’t shown a single shred of contrition—is a fit topic for robust political intervention.
May 23, 2024
In January 2021, the upside down American flag had become a banner for former U.S. President Donald Trump’s effort to block the peaceful transfer of power. Armed insurrectionists carried it into the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Eleven days later, even as National Guard troops still guarded the Capitol and the Supreme Court building itself, Justice Samuel Alito flew the insurrectionists’ flag outside his Virginia home.
This was far more than an act of indiscreet partisanship, troubling though that might have been. We’ve had those before, from Sandra Day O’Connor backing George W. Bush to Ruth Bader Ginsburg mocking Trump. Justices are human, and sometimes they slip up.
No, this was not a gaffe. It was a senior government official hoisting the banner of a violent insurrectionist movement devoted to overturning a core constitutional principle. At the time, there were numerous cases before the court in which the justices swatted away Trump’s false claims of a stolen election.
In response to the latest scandal, Alito has shrugged. That is a powerful demonstration of the dangerously emboldening effects of lifetime power.
And now this term alone, three major cases have been argued that go straight to the misconduct that marked the “Stop the Steal” effort. Already Alito joined the majority in rejecting Colorado’s effort to keep Trump off the ballot because he had engaged in an insurrection. The court is considering a challenge to the use of federal criminal law that could toss the convictions of 350 insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol.
And of course, Alito is part of the Supreme Court’s most egregious intervention on Trump’s behalf—its refusal to allow the timely federal prosecution of the former president. Special Counsel Jack Smith asked for a ruling confirming that Trump is not immune from prosecution in December 2023. Instead, Alito and his colleagues scheduled arguments for the last hour of the term and seemed to make up a doctrine of wide immunity for some criminal misconduct on the spot. Stop the steal? Start the stall.
Alito has long been inscrutably angry, unwaveringly dogmatic, and the most predictably partisan of all justices. But his growing brazenness still shocks. Judges are required to “act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.” There is simply no question that Alito has breached the rules. Of course he should recuse himself from consideration of the Trump immunity case and the other cases dealing with January 6. Of course he won’t.
So in the face of this kind of brazenness, what to do?
To start, Congress must finally pass a binding code of conduct for the justices. The current code, which the court announced in November, is vague and toothless. It was always a bid to forestall congressional action.
Last year, Alito told The Wall Street Journal, “I know this is a controversial view, but I’m willing to say it. No provision in the Constitution gives [Congress] the authority to regulate the Supreme Court—period.” That’s silly. As my colleagues Jennifer Ahearn and Michael Milov-Cordoba recently documented in a well-timed law review article, Congress has a major role to play in enforcing Supreme Court ethics. Congress can, and repeatedly has, expanded and shrunk the size of the court. It can change the court’s jurisdiction. It has set rules for recusal and financial disclosure. Congress even wrote the justices’ first mandatory oath of office way back in 1789. As Justice Elena Kagan wisely responded last year, “It just can’t be that the court is the only institution that somehow is not subject to checks and balances from anybody else. We’re not imperial.”
Congress can also demand that Alito answer questions under oath, rather than hiding behind incomplete press releases (and his wife). Maybe it can do more.
A breach of this magnitude—in a case that implicates the health of our democratic institutions, by a justice that hasn’t shown a single shred of contrition—is a fit topic for robust political intervention.
And, as we’ve said before, it’s time for term limits. In response to the latest scandal, Alito has shrugged. That is a powerful demonstration of the dangerously emboldening effects of lifetime power. Nobody should hold too much power for too long.
And where is Chief Justice John Roberts? He often purports to be an institutionalist and tries to curate the credibility of the court. He knows that public approval for the high court has plunged to nearly its lowest level ever recorded in polls. That goes beyond a reaction to Dobbs and other activist rulings—it reflects wide public dismay with what has become a partisan institution.
Ultimately, this kind of power grab should be a part of the national debate in our national election. Where is President Joe Biden? He seems reluctant to engage, clinging to an outdated reverence many liberals still have for the court as an institution. But as conservatives taught us for decades, it is entirely appropriate for the Supreme Court, its actions, and its impact, to be a major part of public debate.
The U.S. Flag Code instructs that the upside down flag should not be flown “except as a signal of dire distress in instance of extreme danger to life or property.” Today it is our constitutional system that is in extreme danger—but not in the way Alito and his allies believe. If Alito won’t voluntarily do the bare minimum to protect our democracy, the coequal branches should do everything they can to force him to do so.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Why SCOTUS’ Code of Conduct Fails to Address Corruption
By issuing this toothless code of conduct, the Supreme Court attempts to circumvent necessary reforms and enables more lavish gifts and lucrative speaking engagements from their wealthy patrons.
Nov 22, 2023
After months of ethics scandals and scrutiny from advocates, the U.S. Supreme Court released a code of conduct on November 15, with all nine justices signing on. According to the opening statement, the justices wanted to allegedly dispel a “misunderstanding that the justices of this Court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules.”
But the code isn’t fostering understanding; it’s a mere facade, a paper-thin veiled attempt at responsibility that ultimately serves as nothing more than a PR stunt in the guise of genuine accountability. Once rumored ethical concerns have now become regular fixtures in national headlines about clear ethics violations. Deep investigations by multiple outlets have revealed a pattern and practice of questionable behavior. Congress must see through this stunt, conduct a thorough investigation, and enact binding, enforceable federal legislation covering ethics reform and court expansion.
SCOTUS Justices Are Not Sorry About Corruption. They’re Sorry They Got Caught
It’s not a surprise that the code arrives just as the Senate Judiciary Committee is debating subpoenas for Harlan Crow, who has given millions of dollars in gifts to Clarence Thomas, and Leonard Leo, whose wealth influenced a far-right takeover of the court. Public opinion of the court is at historic lows. Congress is responding to public pressure and finally considering action on ethics reform. By issuing this toothless code of conduct, the Supreme Court attempts to circumvent necessary reforms and enables more lavish gifts and lucrative speaking engagements from their wealthy patrons.
Highest Court with the Lowest Ethics Standards
The justices claim they adapted their new code of conduct from rules governing judges lower on the federal bench. But there is a key and glaring difference: The justices make the provisions of their code discretionary, thus enabling the Supreme Court to be the only federal entity not subject to an enforceable ethical code of conduct. Justices further skirt addressing conflicts of interest, misconduct, and when recusal is necessary.
The unenforceable code relies not on congressional or executive branch oversight, but on the justices’ self-reporting and self-regulation. It does not address donor influence or failure to disclose gifts over a specified amount. It leaves recusal for conflicts of interest up to individual justices. There are no procedures for public complaints or any formal reviews or investigations of rule-breaking. In contrast, the lower courts’ rules have multiple references to enforcement and disciplinary procedures, and Bloomberg even suggests that non-SCOTUS justices “divest from financial interests ‘that might require frequent disqualification.’”
We Already Have the Blueprint for a Better Court
Congress cannot continue to allow the Supreme Court to act as conduits for far-right billionaires. We must instead issue common-sense reforms to end the blatant corruption and mitigate the decades of far-right takeover. Luckily, we already have the blueprint.
First, the Senate Judiciary Committee must issue subpoenas to Harlan Crow and Leonard Leo and thoroughly investigate the ethics violations. The U.S. public has a right to know the extent of judicial misconduct and the influence of far-right megadonors on the Supreme Court’s business.
Second, Congress must pass a binding, enforceable Supreme Court ethics bill that outlines clear rules regarding recusals, gifts, and conflicts of interest. The legislation must also outline specific consequences if justices break the code and the body charged with investigating misconduct. Several ethics bills are already being considered, including the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act (SCERT), marked up by the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year.
Congress must see through this stunt, conduct a thorough investigation, and enact binding, enforceable federal legislation covering ethics reform and court expansion.
Finally, Congress must rebalance the court by passing the Judiciary Act and adding four seats. Court expansion is the simplest and most effective way to undo decades of conservative court-packing and the far-right takeover of the courts. The Judiciary Act, sponsored by Representative Hank Johnson in the House and Senator Ed Markey in the Senate, already has 65 cosponsors. The ethics crisis is a symptom of deeper institutional rot that can only be fixed through rebalancing the court.
Public pressure to stop this ethics circus is mounting. A Morning Consult poll found 3 in 4 voters support a binding ethics code. Likewise, a Demand Justice commissioned YouGov poll found that 59% of Americans are less likely to “support a congressional candidate who opposes ethics reform at the Supreme Court.” While Justice Samuel Alito claims that congressional oversight of Supreme Court ethics is unconstitutional, he ignores hundreds of years of precedent. There’s a lot of work to do, but momentum and precedent are on our side.
Congress cannot continue to sit back and let the ultraconservative Supreme Court dictate national policy at the behest of their far-right patrons. Now is the time to do their duty, rein in the court’s corruption, and undo the far-right court packing that’s wreaked havoc on our democratic systems.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular