Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are planning to hold a hearing on the “ethical standards” of the Supreme Court in the midst of a major scandal surrounding Justice Clarence Thomas.
prepared by the Court that found that “the Court has had no reason to adopt the Code of Conduct as its definitive source of ethical guidance,” after lawmakers had similarly pushed the Court to adopt a binding ethics code more than a decade ago.
Crow’s relationship with Thomas and other ethical concerns surrounding Thomas were known even back then, the lawmakers wrote.of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about the Supreme Court’s code of conduct in 2011 that “Questions have been raised over Justice Clarence Thomas’s appearances before Republican-backed groups and his acceptance of favors from a contributor in Texas, Harlan Crow, as well as over his wife, Virginia Thomas, and her job as a conservative advocate.
The lawmakers raised concern over the evident failure by Roberts, who has been chief justice since 2005, in recognizing the need for a binding ethics code for over a decade. “It is troubling that your 2011 year-end report, which dismissed the call for the Justices to adopt the Code of Conduct, was written notwithstanding the known concerns about Mr. Crow’s largesse. This problem could have been resolved then,” the Democrats said. “Instead, according to’s reporting, Mr. Crow’s dispensation of favors escalated in secret during the years that followed. Now the Court faces a crisis of public confidence in its ethical standards that must be addressed.
The letter comes amid an explosion of calls for action surrounding Thomas and the Supreme Court. Some lawmakers,
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