A lawyer in an upcoming tax case interviewed Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. for a Wall Street Journal article in which Alito refuted criticism of his conduct.
, Alito said he expected the organized legal community to defend him and other justices. “But that’s just not happening. And so at a certain point I’ve said to myself, nobody else is going to do this, so I have to defend myself.”from the Democratic senators said that Rivkin’s “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.
“Senator Durbin’s request for my recusal is presumably based on the theory that my vote in [the case] will be affected in some way by the content of the articles that resulted from the interviews, but that theory fundamentally misunderstands the circumstances under which Supreme Court Justices must work,” Alito wrote.
In one of the Wall Street Journal articles in question, Alito said flatly that Congress had no role to play in prescribing an ethics code specific to the high court.“I know this is a controversial view, but I’m willing to say it,” Alito said. “No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period.”
Durbin cited those remarks in his letter to Roberts saying Alito inappropriately commented on pending legislation, and should also recuse himself in the tax case,Alito on Friday supplied a list of interviews other justices have conducted with media outlets while he said those groups had interests before the court.
“Similarly, many of my colleagues have been interviewed by attorneys who have also practiced in this Court, and some have co-authored books with such attorneys,” Alito wrote, offering colleague Justice Neil M. Gorsuch and the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as examples.
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