Conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Friday rejected a call by Senate Democrats to recuse himself from a tax case that involved a lawyer who interviewed him on behalf of the Wall Street Journal, which provided a platform for the justice to defend himself.
Former President Donald Trump's niece Mary Trump on Tuesday shared on X, formerly Twitter, political scientist Norman Ornstein's take on the development.
What Happened: “Self-described ‘originalist' Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito pretends not to know what's in the constitution,” Mary Trump said in the post, quoting Ornstein, an emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
“Alito is ‘the poster child of arrogance, insensitivity, and ethical failure,” she added.
Alito argued in the WSJ editorial that “Congress did not create the Supreme Court,” and said, “No provision in the Constitution gives them [Congress] the authority to regulate the Supreme Court.” Ornstein quoted this in her article for The New Republic.
Ornstein termed this as Alito's “defiant, intemperate, and in-your-face response to revelations about his ethics violations.”
The ethics violations included an unreported lavish fishing trip paid for by right-wing billionaire Paul Singer, who had business before the court, and a trip to Rome after the Dobbs decision erasing the Roe vs. Wade, he said.
The Rome trip, Ornstein said, was funded by a Notre Dame-based anti-abortion group that has filed an amicus brief in the case.
Why It's Important: The nine justices of the Supreme Court are currently not constrained by restrictions imposed on federal employees and employees of the judicial branch, including all district and circuit-court judges, which debars them from accepting gifts worth more than $20 from anyone, other than friends and family.
The only ethical requirement that binds the Supreme Court justices is the need to disclose in an annual report certain information about their investments, outside income, and gifts as well as some financial data related to their immediate family, an Economist report said.
A ProPublica report in April revealed that billionaire property developer Harlan Crow, who donates to conservative causes, hosted Justice Clarence Thomas on his plane and yacht for decades. The report also revealed that Crow bought the home the justice now owns in Georgia and paid private school tuition for his great-nephew.
Following this Thomas filed a belated disclosure report for 2022 in which he disclosed some of the gifts.
The Senate Judiciary Committee in late July approved legislation that would require the Supreme Court to abide by stronger ethics standards despite opposition from Republicans.
The current composition of the Supreme Court bench is tilted in favor of conservatives, with six of the nine justices being conservative-leaning. Out of these six, three were nominated by Donald Trump.
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