A group of 18 Democratic congressmen sent a letter to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday demanding that he launch an internal investigation of Supreme Court Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
ProPublica, a nonprofit news outlet, questioned Thomas and Alito’s compliance with judiciary ethics rules in separate reports.
The 18 Democrats, led by Rep. Dan Goldman of New York, criticized Roberts in their letter and demanded that he “establish an independent investigative body within the Court” that may probe Thomas and Alito, according to the letter.
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“Despite your insistence that the Court can police itself, you have provided no rationale or vision for how the Court will do so,” the members wrote, adding that “the Court’s failure to conduct a meaningful, independent investigation into allegations against Justices Thomas and Alito only underscores widespread concerns that the Supreme Court is not subject to a code of ethics or an adequate enforcement process.”
The letter was signed by prominent left-wing Democrats such as Reps. Adam Schiff and Ted Lieu of California and Jamie Raskin of Maryland. It also included a list of allegations touted by left-wing groups against Thomas and Alito, as well as compared the allegations against them to the Court’s investigation of the leak of its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overruled Roe v. Wade.
ProPublica accused Thomas of concealing trips that he took with conservative billionaire Harlan Crow and accused Alito of failing to disclose a trip he took with conservative billionaire Paul Singer to Alaska in its respective reports on the justices.
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In the 73rd paragraph of its story on Alito, ProPublica wrote that another judge, A. Raymond Randolph of the D.C. Circuit was told by the judiciary’s financial disclosure office that he wasn’t required to disclose a trip on a private jet with a conservative donor — with the same conduct by Alito being criticized by ProPublica as flouting ethics rules.
Donors to ProPublica included several left-wing organizations that have called for Thomas to resign or be investigated, with ProPublica citing some employees of these organizations as “experts” in the story about Thomas.
Roberts has refused Democratic lawmakers’ efforts to scrutinize the court on ethical grounds. In April, Roberts declined an invitation from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin to testify before the committee regarding Supreme Court ethics, citing precedents regarding testimony by justices.
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