Senate Democrats on Saturday morning concluded a nearly two-year-long investigation into the ethical practices of the Supreme Court, issuing a final report that focused on the court’s conservative members, accusing them of impropriety such as accepting lavish gifts and failing to recuse amid conflicts of interests.
“Now more than ever before, as a result of information gathered by subpoenas, we know the extent to which the Supreme Court is mired in an ethical crisis of its own making,” Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Dick Durbin (D-IL) said in a statement Saturday morning.
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The 97-page staff report accuses Justice Clarence Thomas, who joined the court in 1991, of receiving millions of dollars in gifts over the years with a level of extravagance that has “no comparison in modern American history.”
The report also alleges that following public reporting about Thomas’s largesse in 2004, Thomas “stopped disclosing the vast majority of gifts he received,” which the report says “constitutes a violation of federal law.”
In addition to the attacks lobbed on Thomas, Justice Samuel Alito was accused by Durbin and Whitehouse of “misusing” the personal-hospitality exemption when he did not disclose he took a trip on billionaire Paul Singer’s private plane in 2008 for an Alaskan fishing trip. But Alito countered in his own response published in the Wall Street Journal that “justices commonly interpreted this discussion of ‘hospitality’ to mean that accommodations and transportation for social events were not reportable gifts.”
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The report also refers to the incident in which Alito’s wife flew an upside-down American flag in their yard on Jan. 6, 2021, saying that the Alitos have “created the appearance of impropriety in several instances that necessitate his recusal in specific cases under federal law.”
None of the report’s 14 major findings reference by name Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, or Ketanji Brown Jackson, the three sitting justices appointed by Democratic presidents. Their absence from the report is significant given that Sotomayor was accused in 2023 of having staff members urge schools and libraries to purchase copies of her memoir, while Jackson faced heat last year for not disclosing her husband’s income for his work involving medical malpractice consultation.
Mark Paoletta, a close friend to Thomas who often fights back against allegations of ethical impropriety waged against Republican-appointed justices, posted to X that the report was “pathetic” and obfuscated the truth surrounding Thomas’s and Alito’s private activities outside of their work on the bench.
Tip Sheet for reviewing @SenWhitehouse & @SenatorDurbin staff report expected to be released today smearing Justice Thomas and Justice Alito:
— Mark Paoletta (@MarkPaoletta) December 20, 2024
This entire investigation was never about “ethics” but about trying to undermine the Supreme Court because the Court is no longer acting… https://t.co/nHGyr1wmEf
“Justice Thomas and Justice Alito COMPLIED with the laws, regulations, advice, and Judicial Conference rulings regarding the reporting of trips with friends. It was not required under the personal hospitality exception, no matter what Durbin and Whitehouse claim or wish,” Paoletta said.
The Judicial Conference also recently updated its rules to roll back tighter restrictions on judges when it comes to any visits they might make at the private homes of individuals that are registered under an LLC. Now, judges need not report stays as private residences so long as their stays at corporate-owned households are not related to business reasons.
The ethics investigation did not include any input from Republican lawmakers and was merely a staff report, not a full committee report. Republican staff members for the committee did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
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The investigation’s conclusion comes as a last-ditch effort for Democrats to pass legislation to impose an ethics code on the Supreme Court via legislation, a move that has met significant resistance from Republicans and from the high court. Earlier this year, Chief Justice John Roberts “respectfully” declined demands by Durbin and Whitehouse to hold a meeting with him, citing “separation of powers” concerns about such a request.
The Supreme Court last year passed a long-awaited code of ethics that is directed specifically at the nine justices, though it has faced criticism from defenders of the court who say they have always followed lower court ethics guidance, to Democrats who say there needs to be an enforcement mechanism such as an outside panel of judges to recommend disciplinary actions for alleged ethical violations.
“Chief Justice Roberts’s continued unwillingness to implement the only viable solution to the Court’s ethical crisis — an enforceable code of conduct — requires Congress to act to restore the public’s confidence in the highest court in the land,” the report reads.
The report says that passing the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act, which passed out of the committee in September 2023, is a “necessary step.”
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But the overarching debate surrounding the passage of an ethical code through congressional legislation is the constitutional issue of whether Congress can regulate the conduct of a coequal branch of government. Alito has been highly vocal that Congress cannot enact this type of oversight on the courts, and some Republicans who have sided with his viewpoint also worry about the separation of powers.
“While the justices interpret the law, they are not above it,” the report reads. “The Roberts Court has seemingly forgotten this, and the only way forward is the implementation of an enforceable code of conduct.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify the circumstances of Alito’s 2008 Alaska fishing trip.
