Democrats on the House oversight committee are planning to hold a discussion on Supreme Court ethics with expert panelists Tuesday as public trust in the institution continues to take hits.
The committee’s ranking member, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), will lead the discussion alongside Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who chairs the Senate judiciary subcommittee on federal courts.
All three lawmakers have repeatedly joined calls for the court to implement stricter standards of conduct in order to reassure the public of its ability to decide cases fairly, particularly those relating to former President Donald Trump.
“The highest court in the land has the lowest ethical standards,” Raskin said Thursday in a statement. “This mismatch is producing unequal justice under law in America. Behind closed doors, billionaire sugar daddies give Supreme Court justices lavish gifts and push through an extremist agenda against the rights of the people. The whole country is caught in a supreme ethics crisis.”
While Justice Clarence Thomas grabbed headlines in recent years when it was revealed the extent to which he and his Trump-aligned wife accepted lavish gifts from wealthy friends interested in the court’s work, it is Justice Samuel Alito who has claimed the spotlight in recent weeks with a flag scandal.
At least two flags associated with Trump’s MAGA movement were flown at Alito’s residences since the Jan. 6, 2021, attempted coup at the Capitol. In one incident, the American flag was flown upside-down in front of the Alitos’ suburban Virginia home; in another, the “Appeal to Heaven” flag was flown outside the Alitos’ New Jersey beach house.
Both are controversial symbols of political resistance and Christian nationalism that were seen flying during the Capitol riot.
Alito has said that his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, was behind the controversies, suggesting he was largely powerless to do anything about the flags. But discrepancies remain between his version of events about his wife’s aggressive conduct versus the version that his Trump-opposing neighbors have shared. Alito has also been accused of accepting inappropriate gifts.
Whitehouse criticized the high court last week for Chief Justice John Roberts’ refusal to discuss the ongoing scandals with Senate leaders.
“I think if you’re the Supreme Court of the United States, telling a skeptical public and the Congress to go pound sand is not the appropriate tone,” the senator told Vanity Fair.
Neither Alito nor Thomas has offered to recuse themselves in cases related to the Capitol riot, including the looming question of whether Trump should be immune from prosecution because he was president at the time.
Raskin suggested in a New York Times editorial that the Department of Justice could intervene, although Whitehouse cast doubt on that idea.
“The corruption of the Supreme Court has real and immediate consequences in the lives of everyday Americans and threatens the strength of our democracy,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a Thursday statement. “House Democrats are committed to informing the public about why the court’s conservative super majority is rolling back critical economic freedoms, civil rights, and environmental protections, and what we can do about it.”