Supreme Court shredded by legal analyst for 'toothless' ethics reform
On Monday, following months of pressure and scandals surrounding the gifts given to Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, the Supreme Court announced it would be adopting a new code of ethics, in line with those that judges in lower courts are already required to follow.
But there's a big problem with this new system, said legal analyst Elie Mystal on MSNBC's "The ReidOut" Monday: It's still self-enforced by the justices, completely defeating the purpose.
"How seriously should we take the ethics code?" asked anchor Joy Reid. "Let me read a little before. It says here, 'The absence of a code, however, has led in recent years to the misunderstanding that the justices of the court, unlike all other justices in the country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules.'"
"'Misunderstanding,'" echoed Mystal sarcastically. "So we were confused about whether or not Supreme Court justices can have their mother's houses paid for by wealthy Republican donors. Oh, thank you, John Roberts, for elucidating that they can. There are no ethics involved in the code. There is nothing in these 14 pages of weak sauce that restrains people like Clarence Thomas from doing everything that Clarence Thomas did. Nothing about not taking gifts from wealthy donors or taking trips or taking free vacations or taking free houses. Nothing in there is unethical, according to the Supreme Court. So I would call this ethics reform toothless, but that's a bit of an insult to people who have dentures because it's weaker even than that."
"This ethics code is best understood as 'only Clarence Thomas can decide whether or not Clarence Thomas violated Clarence Thomas' rules'," Mystal continued. "And so that is the setup. The idea that this weak sauce ethics rules, so-called ethics rules, there's no enforcement mechanism as you pointed out. It's still up to the individual justices to decide whether or not they should recuse, no third-party adjudication about any of these potential ethics violations. So what is it for?"
"Joy, you hit it exactly right: this has an audience of exactly one. Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin," added Mystal. "This is John Roberts' attempt to push Durbin off of his investigation, an investigation that, by the way, the Supreme Court justices are still refusing to show up and testify about. It's to push him off their investigation and to give ranking Republican member Lindsey Graham something else to scream and cry about when he tries to justify the unethical behavior of the Supreme Court."
Watch the video below or at the link here.
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