Senator launches probe into 'improper' interview Alito gave before ethics allegations

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) demanded answers from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Monday about an "improper" interview he gave to the Wall Street Journal about regulation of the highest court in the land.

The conservative justice in July sat down with the paper and argued, "No provision in the Constitution gives [Congress] the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period."

The comments were made after ProPublica published claims that Justice Clarence Thomas accepted gifts from a billionaire, but just before it reported a GOP donor paid for a luxury fishing trip to Alaska for Alito.

Whitehouse, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, sent a letter to Alito seeking information about his comments, saying his interview "raised several problems."

“It thus appears that you offered an improper opinion regarding a question that might come before the Court; did so in the context of a known ongoing legal dispute involving that precise question; did so at the behest of an interviewer who as a lawyer represented a client in that ongoing dispute; and did so to the benefit of his client, your personal friend, and to the benefit of yourself, as a recipient of undisclosed gifts that are the subject of our investigation," Whitehouse wrote in the letter.

Whitehouse filed an ethics complaint against Alito in response to the same interview, which was published July 28, but he said Chief Justice John Roberts never responded. The senator submitted a follow-up complaint after the attorneys for a benefactor who gave undisclosed gifts to justices cited his remarks to the Journal as justification to refuse to cooperate with a Senate Judiciary Committee investigation.

"Congress has an appropriate and well-established role in oversight of the judiciary and updating ethics laws that apply to federal officials, including justices and judges," Whitehouse's office wrote. "Congress passed the Ethics in Government Act and judicial recusal law, which expressly apply to the justices. Congress also created through statute the Judicial Conference, which administers financial disclosure laws for the entire judiciary."