Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), in his capacity as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights, co-led a hearing of the full Judiciary Committee entitled, “Supreme Court Ethics Reform.”
The hearing explored the recent torrent of media reports detailing unethical conduct by Justices of the Supreme Court and legislative solutions to improve ethics, accountability, and transparency at the highest Court.
Whitehouse’s Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency (SCERT) Act would require the Supreme Court to adopt stricter disclosure rules and establish a process for investigating a justice’s misconduct.
Recent revelations that all 6 conservative justices and their conservative predecessors are and have been guilty of this bribery scheme for decades solidifies the illegitimacy of the court. Any ruling made in the last 30 years MUST be re-examined by a court that actually has ethics rules and laws that make taking bribes criminal and ethics boards that ENFORCE those rules and laws, not self regulation and enforcement which clearly has failed and destroyed all legitimacy of the court system.
In ‘25, when Republicans lose even filibuster power (fingers crossed), insist your representatives not only fix this gaping hole in accountability, but prosecute and remove any justice who violated normal ethics rules (took gifts but didn’t report them, sold property and didn’t report it, whose spouse takes gifts and jobs from people with business with the court and didn’t recuse themselves, etc) and replace them with new, progressive justices with ethics.
9 Comments
admiralrontonsays...Amazing. Too much to hope the bill will pass, but I'll keep my fingers crossed.
bobknight33says...
bobknight33says...
newtboysays...You fucking retard.
You don’t see any difference between public charity work and secret personal enrichment?
You don’t understand the differences between an organization making public commercials and individuals handing justices and their families millions in unreported cash?
You don’t understand the legal issue is the not reporting the money, hiding the actual bribes.
Guaranteed, the conservative justices ON TOP OF THE TENS OF MILLIONS IN BRIBES also sold their personal mementos and their appearance fees for charity hundreds of times, and if they reported it it’s perfectly legal (but immoral).
Is it disgusting that the 3 non regressive judges okey-doked the “nothing to see here” letter, and that should disqualify them too for a lack of ethics….and we can discuss that only after the 6 actual criminals are removed for not only a lack of ethics but for tax fraud and decades of submitting fraudulent sworn financial reports.
Derp de do…both sides!
Sure, there’s once again only proof of right wing crimes but I’ll just say left wing crimes are worse because I FEEL that way.
newtboysays...You must be fucking kidding.
You think this makes your party look sane? Or fair? Or even 1% honest?
I guess he expects no one to remember all the threats righty politicians make against the court, the left, and each other…usually involving a “second amendment solution”, not a threat of basic ethics rules.
Then you think listing some working lecture trips some justices took that were publicly reimbursed by law schools that never had cases before the court and which they reported equates to tens of millions in hyper luxury international trips for the entire family by people with cases before the court that were hidden and not reported as specifically and unambiguously required by law helps make the right seem LESS criminal. 😂
Clarence Thomas delegitimized himself by selling access to himself in secret, selling his decisions in secret, by not recusing himself from cases involving his “friends” (that he only met after becoming a justice), not recusing himself from cases involving his wife, her political movement/business, and pretending that he, the top legal authority in the country, didn’t know it was illegal despite it being incredibly clear in the law…laws he is 100% aware of and followed until corrupt Scalia told him he could get away with it by just not reporting it anymore (like Scalia did with million dollar hunting retreats over 70 times).
It makes you all look criminally unethical and moronic.
Why would anyone want no rules for the highest court unless they are complicit in the bribery schemes?
Self regulation has clearly completely failed, it’s never once worked in human history, but it’s Graham’s/the right’s only plan. Keep bribery legal at the highest levels. 🤦♂️
Graham whining that it’s not fair to catch major criminals selling the rule of law to the highest bidder, we need to focus on minor ethics lapses and Democratic threats to enforce ethics rules instead and let them continue to self regulate…it’s going so well.
bobknight33says...So people at supreme court should only be allowed to hang with poor people?
News Flash These justices are fairly rich themselves.
secret personal enrichment?
Your the F idiot
He not hiding anything.
You fucking retard.
You don’t see any difference between public charity work and secret personal enrichment?
You don’t understand the differences between an organization making public commercials and individuals handing justices and their families millions in unreported cash?
You don’t understand the legal issue is the not reporting the money, hiding the actual bribes.
Guaranteed, the conservative justices ON TOP OF THE TENS OF MILLIONS IN BRIBES also sold their personal mementos and their appearance fees for charity hundreds of times, and if they reported it it’s perfectly legal (but immoral).
Is it disgusting that the 3 non regressive judges okey-doked the “nothing to see here” letter, and that should disqualify them too for a lack of ethics….and we can discuss that only after the 6 actual criminals are removed for not only a lack of ethics but for tax fraud and decades of submitting fraudulent sworn financial reports.
newtboysays...No, you fuckwit. You are always releasing the paper tigers you love to fight. Heroically battling windmills. 😂
They should only be allowed to accept minor gifts they report like a normal under $100 meal, not $1 million vacations that are specifically barred by law, not sale of properties at extreme profits that’s intentionally hidden from financial reports which require their report by clear unambiguous law.
It’s not one bit about “hanging out”, it’s about selling access to justices to people with cases before the Supreme Court in secret, about buying opportunity to present your argument to justices away from the court with no rules or opposition and prejudice them towards your position, and to pay them to accept those positions.
(Side note, it’s not illegal but this also 100% destroys the fake “Everyman” persona Thomas has lied about for decades….saying he prefers Walmart parking lots to expensive beaches and old RVs over luxury travel, but spending all his vacations on private luxury beaches, exclusive luxury resorts and retreats, and globetrotting on private planes. Every word you’ve ever heard from this man is a lie. Every. Single. Word. Ever.)
News flash, these billionaires had no interest in being friends with the justices before hey were on the highest court…they aren’t old friends, they’re new benefactors found after they became powerful justices mislabeled as “friends”. Guaranteed, if Thomas is removed, he will never hear from Crow again….not once.
News flash, Justices are only rich because they illegally take bribes in the million dollar range for the sale of their decisions in court. They were not rich before becoming justices. Do you think American justice should be for sale to the highest bidder…should Soros be in control of everything because, as you believe, he bribes everyone everywhere. (Hint- you would clearly call for prison nonstop if you could prove he bribed anyone).
No, you don’t think, you just defend every righty crime no matter what it is and make up lefty crimes out of thin air.
You fuckwit. He hid EVERYTHING. Tens to hundreds of millions unreported, every penny of which he absolutely knew must be reported by law, he reported most before finding out Scalia had gotten away with not reporting tens of millions and over 70 million dollar international hunting trips, one of which he died on….today it was revealed Crow secretly, totally unreported, paid for Thomas’s ward/child’s tuition at hyper expensive (Tuition at the exclusive Hidden Lake Academy cost more than $6,000 a month) private schools….on top of million dollar vacations for the entire family, businesses created for his wife and huge salary for his wife unreported, property sold by Thomas above market value then handed back for free with major improvements, the list of bribes discovered from this one billionaire grows daily….hint, he’s not the only one.
Yes, dumbshit. If as a judge you sell your decisions about the law in America for a cash bribe, that’s secret personal enrichment. I know, two 3 syllable words together is way above your comprehension level.
Edit: Maybe that’s the problem. Let’s try this….
He big steal lots of times…lots big steals two. Big lies to. Him sell law four cash bribe. Your thinks say that ok fine, he MAGA hero, so he can no bad. That dumb.
Big surprise….because conservatives were caught taking them over and over and over and over and over you now have absolutely no problem with bribery at the highest levels….but you’ll lose your shit and start screaming “hypocrisy! Criminals! Lock them up!” if any non MAGgot gets caught accepting a sandwich.
So people at supreme court should only be allowed to hang with poor people?
News Flash These justices are fairly rich themselves.
secret personal enrichment?
Your the F idiot
He not hiding anything.
newtboysays...Sotomayor too.
Took millions in book advances from a publisher that had cases before the court, and she did not recuse herself.
I say take them all out 1 per month to give time to replace them without a two year hiatus without a court, in descending order of total bribes received. Remove any that took unreported “gifts” over $100 from one source and any that took reported money from those with cases and didn’t recuse themselves. Either is 100% unacceptable from a justice, and disqualifies the entire standing court, invalidating every decision this group made and necessitating a retrial of every single one. Corrupt decisions cannot stand without invalidating the entire system.
newtboysays...Oops…all those bribes Thomas didn’t report…the bribes that MADE him rich...the tens of millions of unreported income for himself and millions more for multiple family members including his wife, “son”, and mother that he sold his court decisions for….he also didn’t report to the IRS or pay taxes on it. That’s undeniable intentional massive tax evasion, millions in tax liability he evaded, that is not just a removable crime but also serious prison time.
Gorshuch too.
So people at supreme court should only be allowed to hang with poor people?
News Flash These justices are fairly rich themselves.
secret personal enrichment?
Your the F idiot
He not hiding anything.
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