HelloJohn,

I’m Virginia Canter, CREW’s Chief Ethics Counsel. I spent decades working in the federal government under presidents of both parties. For most of my legal career, I had faith in the Supreme Court and would not have questioned their ethics or impartiality. Several recent scandals have shaken that confidence.

Earlier this year, I spoke with the ProPublica reporters who broke the stories about Justice Clarence Thomas’s unreported luxury travel with Harlan Crow, his secretive real estate deals and the tuition for his grand nephew.

I heard from the reporters again later, this time about an unreported fishing trip Justice Samuel Alito took with billionaire Paul Singer. These stories made clear that ethics issues on the Supreme Court were widespread and longstanding.

Now, Justice Alito is in the news again. This time, he spoke to reporters with the Wall Street Journal, and made this statement:

This isn’t just a controversial statement. It’s unequivocally wrong.

Of course Congress has the authority to regulate the ethical obligations of the Supreme Court: Congress not only sets the size of the court and selects the start of the Supreme Court term, but Congress also wrote the very oath the justices are required to take upon their appointment to the Court. That oath obligates them to “administer justice without respect to persons,” to “do equal right to the poor and to the rich,” and “to faithfully and impartially discharge and perform” the duties of their judicial office.

ButJohn, there’s something bigger behind Alito’s message—a suggestion that the justices of the Supreme Court answer to no one, and that they are above the law.

That couldn’t be further from the truth, and it’s time for Congress to make that clear.

For years, CREW has been fighting for an enforceable, binding Code of Conduct for Supreme Court justices. We’ve testified before Congress about it, submitted testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee and sent letters, all in an attempt to bring ethics reform to the highest court in the land.

Alito’s comments came shortly after the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to advance legislation that would require the court to establish a code of ethics – and weeks after he and his colleague on the bench, Clarence Thomas, were exposed for accepting luxury vacation and lavish gifts from wealthy politically-oriented donors who had business before the court.

Here are two other key facts that make Alito’s statements about the ethics of the Supreme Court even more concerning:

• David Rivkin—who sat down with Alito for four hours to write this Wall Street Journal article—is an appellate lawyer representing a client with a major case coming before the Supreme Court next term.
• Not only is Alito wrong, he’s cherry picking which parts of the law to cite. When he claimed in his first op-ed that he had no obligation to report “personal hospitality,” he neglected to include key language laid out in the law that limits the use of that exception—which applied in his case.

John, in Justice Alito’s case, his free fishing trip to Alaska onboard Paul Singer’s private plane clearly should have been reported, and his failure to do so is wrong. But what’s also concerning is Alito’s PR campaign after the fact, which reveals a disdain for ethics, checks and balances and a willingness to mislead the American people.

Supreme Court justices should be held to the highest ethical standards of all judges, not the lowest.

Thank you,

Virginia Canter
Chief Ethics Counsel
CREW