The Supreme Court's ethics problem is more important than separation of powers: former ethics czar

Former White House Ethics Czar Norm Eisen explained that things have become so bad at the U.S. Supreme Court that it's worth other branches of government stepping in. The U.S. Senate invited Chief Justice John Roberts to answer questions about his ethics but Roberts refused.

"I think given the emergency nature of this constant drumbeat of ethics scandal at the Supreme Court, the separation of powers concern's important, must yield to an even more important consideration, which is we need to be confident that our Supreme Court justices are not being influenced by things like these hundreds of thousands of dollars in undisclosed luxury travel gifts that Justice [Clarence] Thomas got from Harlan Crow. So, separation of powers is important. Ethics is even more important," Eisen said on CNN.

The comment comes after a number of scandals involving nearly all of the conservative justices have surfaced over the past month. Late this week, it was revealed that Neil Gorsuch got a sweetheart real estate deal on his house along the Colorado River that had been for sale for two years. The sale went through in April 2017. Gorsuch was confirmed on April 10, 2017.

Gorsuch, and two friends he owned the home with, listed it for nearly $2.5 million. They ended up with $1.825 million and Gorsuch's portion was a six-figure payout.

The sale went to the CEO of one of the biggest law firms in the country, which has cases before the court.

Eisen went on to say that the problem for the Court is that they can't enforce any of the rules that they have, and that the rules are woefully inadequate.

"Every ethics authority — and I administered these ethics laws for the White House. Every ethics authority needs to have some kind of independent review. They need to have transparency, and they need to have accountability if they go awry," Eisen explained to host Jim Acostia. "I meant it can't be that one governmental body, one judicial body in all the land, that if a Justice Thomas takes hundreds of thousands of dollars in undisclosed luxury travel gifts, Jim, that he decides if he did wrong or not. And respectfully, some of those justices are my friends, but respectfully, even if all nine of them agree that Justice Thomas should make those calls or Justice Gorsuch was a law school classmate of mine — no, that's not the American idea. We started out talking about separations of powers. You know another thing we have? Checks and balances. Well, where are the checks, and where are the balances if Justice Thomas is deciding his own ethics violations?"

See the full conversation below or at the link here.

Norm Eisen: Supreme Court Ethics — or lack thereofyoutu.be