Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts Thursday rejected Senate Democrats’ demands for a meeting to discuss ethics concerns amid fellow Justice Samuel Alito’s refusal to recuse himself from Jan. 6-related cases.
Lawmakers became concerned after reports the conservative justice flew pro-Trump flags as his residences.
Roberts told lawmakers that he would not appear because he believes such a meeting would violate separation of powers between the legislative and judicial branches.
“I must respectfully decline your request for a meeting,” Roberts wrote in a terse one-page letter. “The importance of preserving judicial independence counsels against such appearances.”
The nation’s top jurist told Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) and Sen. Whitehead (D-Rhode Island) that Supreme Court justices have rarely agreed to such public meetings with lawmakers and it might give the impression that he was bowing to improper political pressure.
“Participating in such a meeting would be inadvisable,” he added.
Roberts refusal effectively amounts to backing Alito’s decision not to step aside from cases involving former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
The chief justice noted that the Supreme Court’s newly enacted ethics code says it is up to each justice to decide whether to recuse themselves from any given case.
Critics want Alito to step aside from Trump election cases after new bombshell reports say an upside-down American flag was raised outside the judge’s home in suburban Virginia in the days after Jan. 6. Another flag often flown by conservative Christian nationalists was later spotted at the Alitos’ home on the Jersey Shore.
Alito blames the flags on his wife and says they don’t amount to evidence that he is biased in favor of the GOP ex-president.
Both Alito and an another conservative justice, Clarence Thomas, have rejected calls to recuse themselves from cases related to the 2020 election, which Trump lost to President Biden.
Thomas’ wife, Ginni, is a well-known right-wing activist who openly supported efforts to overturn Biden’s win in the election, an effort that culminated with the violent Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Judicial ethics codes generally call for judges to be independent and avoid voicing political statements or opinions on matters they could be called on to decide.
The Supreme Court never had its own code of ethics, but it adopted one last year in the face of sustained criticism over undisclosed trips and gifts from wealthy benefactors to some justices. But the code has no enforcement mechanism, leading critics to deride it as largely window dressing.
