While Democratic lawmakers are pressing Chief Justice John Roberts to testify before them about the flood of questions about Justice Clarence Thomas and his friend-with-benefits relationship with Texas billionaire Harlan Crow, their fellow justices have been quiet as the court's reputation sinks even lower.
According to MSNBC analyst Hayes Brown, the three liberal justices, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, need to step up and express their dismay.
As Brown points out, the letter that Roberts sent to Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-IL) dismissing attempts to get him to testify "included a 'Statement on Ethics Principles and Practices' that all nine justices had signed."
According to the analyst, the three liberals, as well as the other justices, should have balked at taking part in what looks like a cover-up.
"At worst, it is a sign that even the three 'liberal' justices are willing to place the Supreme Court’s consolidation of power above any ideological disagreements with their colleagues," he wrote.
Calling it a "sad irony," he later added, "If Kagan, Sotomayor and Jackson truly believe that it is only the Supreme Court that has the ability to govern itself, then they need to be more forceful in putting that self-regulation into practice. They need to be willing to tell Congress if, as it appears from the outside, there is no effective way for that to happen. And they need to be willing to speak out about whether they believe Thomas violated the ethics code that they have now signed onto."
"For now, the three of them are standing with their own faction in a way that only hurts the court in the long term," he concluded.
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