The hypocrisy of our highest court docket is on full show—once more.
In Might 2024, everybody discovered Supreme Court docket Justice Samuel Alito and his spouse Martha-Ann had been devotees of the science of vexillology. One of many flags on the Alito residence was the upside-down U.S. flag, well-known as an emblem of Donald Trump’s wholly unlawful “Stop the Steal” motion. However the one the couple flew at their seashore home—an “Appeal to Heaven” flag that includes a pine tree—is extra of a deep reduce. It’s a relic of the Revolutionary Struggle that had disappeared from American consciousness till it grew to become an emblem of—shock!—the “Stop the Steal” motion.
The flag information broke just a few weeks after the justices heard oral arguments in Trump’s immunity case. Regardless of calls that he recuse himself from that case, Alito informed everybody to pound sand.
In keeping with Alito, the folks calling on him to recuse had been the actual ones taking part in politics. He insisted that “a reasonable person who is not motivated by political or ideological considerations or a desire to affect the outcome of Supreme Court cases would conclude” he was not required to recuse.
Predictably, Alito quickly joined his fellow conservative justices in gifting Trump broad immunity from felony prosecution, arguably one of many main occasions that introduced us President Trump 2.0.
However whereas the flag debate was raging, a sitting federal district court docket choose, Michael Ponsor, wrote an extremely low-key opinion piece for The New York Occasions about it. He took no place on whether or not the Alitos’ flagfest was illegal, however asserted that “as far as the public’s perception of the court’s integrity, it certainly was not helpful.”
Seven months later, Decide Ponsor is paying for these phrases. The chief choose for the Fourth Circuit Court docket of Appeals, Albert Diaz, issued an order on Dec. 10 discovering that Ponsor’s opinion piece was “cognizable misconduct.”
Although Chief Decide Diaz famous that Ponsor didn’t confer with any circumstances earlier than the Supreme Court docket, he wrote that the opinion piece “expressed personal opinions on controversial public issues and criticized the ethics of a sitting Supreme Court justice.”
Diaz additionally cited an amorphous mixture of “political implications and undertones” and timing that violated the ethics rule prohibiting federal judges from publicly commenting on the deserves of a pending case. Diaz additionally decided that it might be perceived that Ponsor’s essay was additionally calling for Alito’s recusal.
So Ponsor obtained in bother as a result of somebody may suppose he was calling on Alito to recuse himself from the immunity case.
In the end, the order concluded that Ponsor’s feedback “diminish the public confidence in the integrity and independence of the federal judiciary,” and he’d violated the ethics canons governing federal judges.
This sounds so very dangerous, like Ponsor’s habits is totally exceptional for a sitting federal choose. However it’s fairly gentle when in comparison with the actions of Sam Alito himself.
Let’s begin with publishing an opinion piece on a controversial public concern. In Might 2023, Alito ran to the Wall Road Journal to slam a ProPublica piece reporting that Alito obtained cozy with billionaire Paul Singer in 2008. Singer’s hedge fund had circumstances earlier than the Supreme Court docket at the very least 10 instances within the following years, and Alito by no means recused from any of them. Hilariously, regardless of the piece being titled, “ProPublica misleads its readers,” Alito’s rant appeared earlier than the ProPublica piece was even printed. Alito based mostly his piece totally on the questions he’d obtained from ProPublica.
A few months later, Alito sat for an interview with lawyer David Rifkin and James Taranto of the Wall Road Journal. Alito complained about “the nonsense that has been written about me” and whined that since nobody else was defending him, “I have to defend myself.”
On the time of the interview, Rifkin represented a shopper in a serious tax case earlier than the Supreme Court docket. A number of Democratic senators referred to as for Alito to recuse, however he refused, insisting that when Rifkin interviewed Alito, “he did so as a journalist, not an advocate” and that the case during which Rifkin was concerned was by no means talked about.
What about “political implications and undertones” and timing, which may lead somebody to suppose Alito was making an announcement on a pending case?
Alito’s upside-down misery flag was seen flying in January 2023, whereas the Court docket was contemplating whether or not to listen to a case difficult the outcomes of the 2020 election. The seashore home flag was noticed a number of instances between July and September of 2023, because the Court docket thought-about whether or not Jan. 6 insurrectionists might be prosecuted for obstruction.
How about Alito’s July 2022 speech the place he mentioned that non secular liberty was below assault as a result of “it is dangerous to those who want to hold complete power?” The Supreme Court docket had simply determined two main non secular liberty circumstances earlier within the 12 months. He additionally mocked international leaders who criticized the overturning of Roe v. Wade. And in a 2024 graduation speech, Alito once more grumbled about assaults on non secular liberty and agreed that the nation wanted to return to “place of godliness.”
And don’t overlook Alito’s continuous calls for the Supreme Court docket to reverse Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage, or his grievance that individuals who “do not hide their adherence to traditional religious beliefs about homosexual conduct will be ‘labeled as bigots.’”
Alito faces zero penalties as a result of the Supreme Court docket is exempt from any ethics guidelines in anyway. Chief Justice John Roberts is so proof against ethics reform that he even refused to speak to Congress about it after information broke that Justice Clarence Thomas loved an extremely luxurious way of life due to Harlan Crow and different assorted billionaires. There’s additionally that factor the place Thomas’s spouse, Ginni, is a full-fledged Trumper who pushed Mark Meadows to overturn the 2020 election and took secret cash from Leonard Leo—who has helped remake the courts within the Federalist Society picture.
As a substitute, the Supreme Court docket has a voluntary Code of Conduct—whereas all different federal judges are sure by ethics guidelines. That is how Ponsor’s essay might be discovered to have harmed public confidence within the “integrity and independence” of the federal judiciary, whereas the Supreme Court docket definitively doesn’t must care if their actions have the identical impression.
This entire disdain for the principles that govern the remainder of the federal judiciary is one other instance of how damaged the Supreme Court docket is. It’s not simply the refusal to interact in even the mildest of ethics reform. It’s that conservatives have been engaged in a multi-year spree of overturning longstanding precedents in ways in which Republicans love—together with paving the way in which for Trump’s federal costs to fade.
An underreported characteristic of the grievance that led to Ponsor’s chastisement was its origin. This didn’t all begin with some involved Occasions reader. Ponsor’s essay was as a substitute first flagged by activist Mike Davis, former chief counsel for nominations to Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley-turned head of the Article III Mission. Davis describes the Mission as a “brass knuckles” group that desires to make the judiciary “a hell of a lot more conservative.”
Steve Bannon describes Davis as “a full fucking MAGA warrior.” In the course of the 2024 marketing campaign, Trump even gave Davis a shoutout, saying he was “tough as hell” and he wished him in a “very high capacity” within the new administration.
It looks like an limitless cycle of corruption, doesn’t it? Conservatives use cash and energy to affect the federal courts—together with attacking anybody who dares converse sick of a conservative justice. Then, the conservative justices themselves flout ethics guidelines and hand down choices explicitly designed to favor these moneyed conservatives.
The Supreme Court docket is untouchable, and so they understand it.
