SCOTUS is 'incapable of policing itself': Demands grow for Congress to force ethics reform
April 28, 2023
A series of new scandals has rocked the Supreme Court, including Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch profiting off secret, undisclosed real estate deals, including with a Republican megadonor who had business before the Court, and revelations that the FBI botched the investigation of sexual assault allegations against Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Speaking to MSNBC's Joy Reid on Friday, The Nation justice reporter Elie Mystal demanded congressional action to reform Supreme Court ethics immediately, saying he is done waiting for the justices to find a conscience themselves.
"I could do seven more minutes of potential ethical scandals," said Reid. "The conduct by Clarence Thomas could be criminal. The conduct by Kavanaugh back during that time could be — could have been criminal. The FBI did a pretend investigation of him. He's sitting on the Court judging whether we can have the right over our own bodies, and he might have misused the bodies of women. To me, they seem completely out of the bounds of ethics, and they don't care."
"And [Hawaii Senator Mazie] Hirono just said something that I think is a problem with the Democratic Party's response to this entire ethical catastrophe," said Mystal. "She said it, like, we're hoping the Supreme Court adopts for itself a code of ethics. Why are we leaving it up to them? What more does the Supreme Court have to do to prove that it is incapable of policing itself?"
"At this point, we're in a world where the Supreme Court is like, oh, we can totally police — we saw a mouse in our house and we caught it," Mystal continued. "No, you idiot! If you saw the mouse, that means you have ten in the walls and you need to burn it with fire. Okay. It's time to send in the cats. It's time to send in the owls. It's time to send in independent oversight over the Supreme Court that the Supreme Court does not have a choice with."
"So the thing I wanted Senator Hirono to say, that I want Senator Durbin to say, that I want anybody in Congress to say, is to use Congress' congressional authority over the power of the purse to bring these justices to heel. It is congress that controls Supreme Court funding," said Mystal. "Now, we have seen, because of some of the drip, drip, drip of scandals that you mentioned, Joy — we have seen that these nine people are probably able to live without their government salaries, right? Between their land deals and book deals and their laundering money through their spouses, they probably don't need their government salaries. But I bet they like having a courthouse. I bet they like having clerks. I bet they like having access. I know they like having taxpayer-funded security details."
"If Congress starts taking those away, if Congress puts the stick to these people and starts taking away some of their perks and some of their privileges, then I bet you the Supreme Court would see the virtue in submitting to independent ethics oversight," Mystal added. "It is that or the highway. This ridiculousness of 'Supreme Court should police itself' has already been proven to be false and unable for these justices to do."
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