Topline
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said Friday he will not recuse himself from an upcoming case in which one of the parties is represented by an attorney who conducted interviews with him for the Wall Street Journal, the latest ethics controversy to befall the court after Democratic senators warned the justice’s participation in the case would be a conflict of interest.
Justice Samuel Alito sits for a group photo of the Justices at the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. … [+] on April 23, 2021.
Key Facts
Alito said Friday he will participate in the case Charles G. Moore v. United States, which concerns taxation under the 16th Amendment, even though one of the attorneys behind the case is David Rivkin, who interviewed Alito in April and July for the Wall Street Journal.
Democratic senators sent a letter to Alito arguing he should recuse himself from the case, arguing Rivkin’s “access” to the justice and “efforts to help Justice Alito air his personal grievances could cast doubt on Justice Alito’s ability to fairly discharge his duties in a case in which Mr. Rivkin represents one of the parties.”
Alito called those arguments “unsound” and said, “There is no valid reason for my recusal in this case,” claiming Rivkin participated in the interviews “as a journalist, not an advocate,” and they did not discuss the upcoming case.
The justice also claimed “there was nothing out of the ordinary” about the interviews—in which Alito hit back at his critics and claimed Congress cannot regulate the Supreme Court, which legal experts have countered is false—as other justices have also given interviews to the media and been interviewed by attorneys with business before the court in the past.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who led the senators’ letter to Alito, said Friday Alito “surprises no one by sitting on a case involving a lawyer who honored him with a puff piece in the Wall Street Journal,” adding, “Justice Alito and the rest of the Court should be doing everything in their power to regain public trust, not the opposite.”
Crucial Quote
Justices “are required to put favorable or unfavorable comments and any personal connections with an attorney out of our minds and judge the cases based solely on the law and the facts,” Alito wrote Friday. “And that is what we do.”
Chief Critic
“This statement of Justice Alito’s exemplifies the no-fact-finding problem regarding SCOTUS ethics matters,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who signed the letter to Alito and is among the biggest advocates for ethics reform at the Supreme Court, said Friday. Whitehouse added there’s “reason to believe this interviewer recruited Alito to prop up a legal theory he was using to prevent his client (and Alito’s friend) Leonard Leo from answering questions about gifts Leo organized for Alito,” referring to the right-wing co-chair of the Federalist Society who’s known for exerting influence on the Supreme Court.
Key Background
Alito’s refusal to recuse marks the latest act of defiance by the conservative-leaning justice in the face of ethics controversies involving him. He previously wrote a Journal op-ed decrying a ProPublica report about him accepting a private jet flight from billionaire Paul Singer despite his hedge fund having business before the court, claiming the outlet “misleads its readers” and defending his decision to travel on Singer’s jet because the seat would have been empty otherwise. In his interview with Rivkin for the Journal, the justice said he “marvel[ed] at all the nonsense that has been written about me in the last year” and defended his decision to speak out against his critics, saying that with no one else defending him, “And so at a certain point I’ve said to myself, nobody else is going to do this, so I have to defend myself.” Alito’s issues are part of a broader ethics controversy facing the court, as other justices—particularly Clarence Thomas—have also attracted widespread scrutiny, ramping up calls by Democratic lawmakers for legislation that would impose a code of ethics on the court. While such legislation is unlikely to pass, given Republicans’ opposition, the court has reportedly been considering whether to impose an ethics code on itself, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh said Thursday he was “hopeful there will be some concrete steps taken soon.”
Further Reading
Supreme Court Justice Alito Slams Congress’ Efforts To Impose Code Of Ethics On Court (Forbes)
