Real Clear Politics headline - Raskin: Supreme Court Will Let January 6th Rioters Off, They've 'Intervened In The 2024 Presidential Campaign'

Reps. Jamie Raskin and AOC just filed legislation to cap the value of gifts Supreme Court justices are allowed to receive at $50, bringing the justices in line with rules that govern members of Congress.

According to Raskin, "Billionaire sugar daddies with interests in Supreme Court litigation have given Justice Clarence Thomas gifts likely totaling more than $4.2 million, including a luxury trip to Bali, Indonesia, a stay at the exclusive Bohemian Grove retreat in California, and a $267,230 loan (later forgiven) to buy a luxury RV Motor Coach."

This bill comes one day after Raskin made news telling PCCC members and reporters on a Zoom call that the Court is "acting in wholly inappropriate and lawless, unethical ways in order to distort the workings of the democratic electoral process....It's just a complete runaway court from an ethics perspective." Raskin also predicted the Court will let January 6 insurrectionists off the hook.

Can you help build momentum for Jamie Raskin and AOC's bill to fight Supreme Court corruption?

Sign on here as a citizen cosponsor of Raskin and AOC's High Court Gift Ban.

Then, call Rep. Brendan Boyle's office and tell him you support a $50 limit on gifts to Supreme Court justices and encourage him to sign on as a cosponsor of the bill. (It is fine to leave a message or voicemail.)

If you missed our live event with Jamie Raskin, you can watch the video here. Share it with your friends on Facebook here, on Twitter (X) here, and on Instagram here. And, chip in here if you value events like this and want to see more of them.

Here are some highlights from the call, which also included legal experts Joyce Vance (former U.S. Attorney, current professor at University of Alabama School of Law) and Dahlia Lithwick (Slate, Amicus podcast), with a special appearance from Lauren Windsor (Undercurrent) sharing her behind-the-curtain thinking while recording Justice Samuel Alito admit his political and religious intentions on the Court:

Jamie Raskin predicts Court will let Jan 6 insurrectionists off hook: (Watch here.)

"I suspect that the right wing majority on the Court is going to dramatically narrow one of the key criminal statutes that's been used in the prosecution of January 6 insurrectionists and rioters."

Raskin on Justices interfering in 2024 election and not caring about their legacy: (Watch here.)

"Other than Chief Justice Roberts, perhaps, I don't know that any of the right wingers on the Court really care about their legacy. I mean, they're basically acting like, you know, just MAGA Republicans on a town council somewhere, and they are working to try to see that their team is going to win. And, you know, they have already substantially, and let's hope not irrevocably, intervened in the 2024 presidential campaign….In this election, the Supreme Court plucking up from the DC Circuit a unanimous, bipartisan, perfectly valid, air-tight analytically, decision on presidential immunity, and then to hold it for month after month after month in order to slow down the possibility of Jack Smith's prosecution of Donald Trump. So you know, we're already looking at a legacy right now."

Raskin on Court being "wholly inappropriate and lawless…a mark of shame." (Watch here.)

The Court is "acting in wholly inappropriate and lawless unethical ways in order to distort the workings of the democratic electoral process…that's a mark of shame and stigma that I don't think they can easily escape. They've been pursuing basically the MAGA platform. Donald Trump has been bragging all over the country about how he built the Supreme Court that overturned Roe versus Wade, and that is the same court that is also holding up the possibility of justice against Donald Trump."

Raskin on Thomas and Alito brazenness and acting political: (Watch here.)

"I don't think there's been a Supreme Court justice as remotely brazen as Justice Thomas in terms of his financial conflicts of interest. I mean, he really views the Supreme Court as a money making enterprise and an opportunity to get the billionaire sugar daddies to pay for everything. And similarly, with Alito, I don't know that we've had, you know, a Justice as overtly partisan political."

Raskin calls for binding ethics rules on the Supreme Court: (Watch here.)

"There is no binding ethics code on the Supreme Court, it is each person being a judge in his or her own case…nobody can be a judge in his or her own case. But that is exactly what operates for this Supreme Court. So we apply the general federal ethics code to the Supreme Court and then figure out a way to have review, perhaps by, an ethics panel of circuit court justices. We've also advanced legislation to have an inspector general at the Supreme Court, which would probably clean things up pretty quickly, but right now, it's just a complete runaway court from an ethics perspective, and the private ethical crises that have caught public imagination so much are just a mirror of the public legitimacy crisis of the Supreme Court."

Supreme Court expert Dahlia Lithwick of Slate pops the bubble on the illusion that we have a so-called "moderate court" (Watch here.)

"It is not a moderate institution. It had a couple of good minutes in the 70s. But I think we need to be very, very clear that the Court has been captured and the Court is now performing the act of vote suppression in order to continue to do things through the judicial branch that [conservatives] couldn't do through the other branches."

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance says of this Court, "The reality is that they failed" to police themselves. (Watch here.)

"The court has in some ways perpetuated this myth that only the court can police itself. And look, the reality is that they failed, and it's time to try something new...Congressman Raskin makes the point that is compelling to me, which is that we have nine justices from an earlier point in time when we had fewer circuits, and that there's some appropriate way to right size the court for our modern circumstances."

Lauren Windsor, who got Alito on tape earlier this month, describes her thinking while preparing for Samuel Alito’s psychology. (Watch here.)

"I didn't think that I was going to be successful whatsoever, and I wasn't in 2023 but I thought in 2024 give it another go. We'll see, given that he is probably more aggrieved with the increased scrutiny on him from the media that he might, you know, with the right goading, with the right sort of ego stroking, be more forthcoming... When he started telling me there were things that fundamentally couldn't be compromised, I was pretty shocked. I mean, in my head, I wanted to push further to see, can I get him to say more?"

Sign on here as a citizen cosponsor of Jamie Raskin and AOC's High Court Gift Ban to end gifts over $50 for Supreme Court justices.

Then, call Rep. Brendan Boyle and tell him you support a $50 limit on gifts to Supreme Court justices and encourage him to sign on as a cosponsor of the bill.

Thanks for being a bold progressive.

-- The PCCC Team

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