Ahead of a long-awaited and pivotal ruling on former President Trump’s immunity claim, a conservative Supreme Court justice is being accused of misconduct by Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse sent a new letter to Justice Samuel Alito, questioning an interview he gave last year that “raised several issues.”
“During that interview, you commented on questions regarding Congress’ authority over ethics matters in the judiciary, and in particular the Supreme Court,” the three-term Democrat from Rhode Island recalled in a June 7 letter.
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Senator Whitehouse revisited the ethics concerns he had about Justice Alito last year amid the ongoing backlash over the flag flying at Justice Alito’s home. (Getty Images)
The latest letter follows a recent exchange between Justice Alito, the White House, Chief Justice John Roberts, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). The senators wrote to the justices asking that Justice Alito be removed from cases related to the 2020 election, including the issue of Trump’s immunity, after it was revealed that an upside-down American flag and an “Appeal to Heaven” flag were flown in his home following the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
Justice Alito resisted their requests to recuse himself from these cases.
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Supreme Court, February 28, 2024, Washington (AP Photo/Jacqueline Martin, File)
In a July 2023 editorial, The Wall Street JournalAlito was interviewed by his lawyer, David Rivkin, and WSJ Editorial Board Editor James Tarrant.
“From the outside, it appears that the attorney hired you to bolster his own case against our investigation and to have used the interview to further the allegations he and several of his colleagues have made,” Whitehouse charged.
He argued that the topics discussed in the interview were designed to thwart efforts by the Democratic-controlled Judiciary Committee to advance legislation that would enforce the Supreme Court’s code of conduct.
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Whitehouse serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“I would add that the discussion in question went awry in the Judiciary Committee’s consideration of a Supreme Court ethics bill, and your interview supporting that discussion was published a few days later. The interview appears to me to have been requested and timed to add effect to the ongoing debate,” the senator said.
Whitehouse filed a complaint with Roberts about the article a few months later, arguing that Alito’s comments in the article “violated several norms of judicial ethics, including the standards the Supreme Court has long applied to itself.”
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An ethics complaint was previously filed with Chief Justice Roberts. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Whitehouse also criticized Alito for potentially engaging in “ex parte” communications — communications between stakeholders in a case and the judges on the case without going through a formal process.
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Ironically, Whitehouse was recently accused of possibly engaging in ex parte communications in connection with various letters he sent to judges.
“These senators are privately urging the Supreme Court justices to change course on pending cases,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a recent floor speech, referring to the demands made by Whitehouse and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) of the justices.
The Supreme Court is due to hand down a ruling. Donald J. Trump v. United States By the end of June, it will answer the question: “Whether and, to what extent, former presidents enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct allegedly conducted in connection with their official duties while in office.”
