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A report from Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats details new allegations about “lavish gifts” that U.S. Supreme Court justices received from donors.
He 93 page reportreleased Saturday, caps a nearly 20-month investigation led by outgoing Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin.
It builds on previous reporting by news outlet ProPublica that raised questions about potential conflicts of interest at the nation’s highest court.
The report, however, claims to have discovered trips never before reported allegedly taken by Justice Clarence Thomas at the expense of real estate developer Harlan Crow, a prominent supporter of the Republican Party.
While the report also mentions other judges, it singles out Thomas for particular censure.
“The amount, value and extravagance of the gifts accepted by Justice Thomas are unparalleled in modern American history,” the report reads.
Judge Thomas has yet to respond publicly to the report’s allegations.
Prominent Senate Democrats like Durbin have long pushed for the Supreme Court to institute a strict code of ethics to prevent conflicts of interest and ensure compliance with disclosure mandates.
In their report, Democrats criticized conservative Chief Justice John Roberts for not taking stronger steps to end the apparent ethical failures.
“Chief Justice Roberts’ continued unwillingness to implement the only viable solution to the Court’s ethics crisis – an enforceable code of conduct – requires Congress to act to restore public confidence in the highest court in the land. “says the report.
He accused the court of failing to address “an ethical crisis of its own making.”
In the wake of the ProPublica investigation, Roberts took steps to implement a Supreme Court code of ethics.
The court had never had such a code before. But critics noted that the new code, approved unanimously by judges in November 2023, included no means to enforce its principles or investigate possible violations.
This has sparked further public outcry. The Gallup pollster reported on Dec. 17 that trust in the U.S. judicial system had sunk to an all-time low, making it an outlier among other relatively wealthy countries.
Gallup found that 55 percent of residents of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries expressed confidence in their courts, as a median.
In the United States, however, that figure was only 35 percent.
Saturday’s report is likely to contribute to that skepticism. The report itself recognizes the crisis of public faith.
“The public is now much more aware of the extent of the largesse that certain judges have received and how these judges and their billionaire benefactors continue to act with impunity,” he said.
The report specifies that “judges appointed by presidents of both parties” have engaged in ethically dubious behavior. He criticizes left-wing Justice Sonia Sotomayor for not initially disclosing the University of Rhode Island’s travel and accommodations during a promotional tour.
However, the report reserves some of its most scathing criticism for Justice Thomas and his conservative colleagues, Samuel Alito and the late Antonin Scalia.
Many of the incidents have been previously detailed elsewhere. For example, the report notes that Justice Thomas has not recused himself in cases in which his wife, conservative activist Ginni Thomas, had an interest in the outcome. The report states that this constitutes a violation of federal law.
ProPublica had previously chronicled Thomas’ travels aboard Crow’s yacht and private jet, potentially worth thousands of dollars. But Saturday’s report also highlights two newly revealed trips in October 2021 to Saranac, New York, and New York City.
In previous public statements, Thomas maintained that he “always sought to comply with disclosure guidelines.” He has also characterized his outings with Crow as “family trips” taken with some of his “dearest friends.”
Another friend of Judge Thomas, attorney Mark Paoletta, responded to the Democrats’ report on social media.
He accused Democratic senators of “smearing” Justice Thomas and attacking the court, which currently has a six-to-three conservative supermajority.
“This entire investigation was never about ‘ethics’ but about trying to undermine the Supreme Court,” Paoletta wrote.
“The left has invented recusal standards to attack judges (and) try to force them to drop cases. “It hasn’t worked.”
Earlier this year, in June, Republican senators blocked a Democratic-led bill designed to create an enforcement mechanism for ethics violations at the court, called the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal and Transparency Act.
But Republicans such as Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina questioned the constitutionality of the bill and called it an overreach.
In January, Republicans will have a majority in the Senate, which is currently led by Democrats. Once they do, they will have control of both houses of Congress.