If Democrats Are Worried About SCOTUS Ethics Rules, They Should Look Into Lefty Justices FirstDemocrats claim they need to strengthen SCOTUS ethics rules, but they never had a problem with leftist justices’ glaring ethical violations.BY: MARK PAOLETTA
JULY 20, 2023
Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats will convene a business meeting Thursday to consider their Supreme Court “ethics” bill. But there is no “ethics problem” with the Supreme Court, and certainly not with Justices Thomas and Alito, who have been falsely smeared even though they complied with the relevant disclosure provisions in place at the time.
But it’s worth reviewing the Democrats’ reactions to Democrat-appointed justices’ conduct to show why Democrats don’t care about ethics and are using made-up “ethics” smears to undermine the court because the left doesn’t like the court’s popular recent rulings, like affirmative action, the protection of a Christian website designer’s First Amendment speech rights, and the striking down of President Biden’s wildly unconstitutional student loan forgiveness giveaway. Recall that ProPublica, the left-wing outfit funded by left-wing billionaires, did not start looking into the court’s “ethics” until after the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
Ethics Probes for Conservatives OnlyThe Democrats claim they need to strengthen the recusal provisions for justices, but they never had any problem with Justice Ginsburg’s husband’s firm appearing repeatedly before the Supreme Court. Justice Ginsburg never recused, and in fact, she voted in favor of her husband’s firm’s client in the 2007 KSR International case. Nor did she recuse when Marty Ginsburg’s former client, Ross Perot, who had gifted him an endowed chair at Georgetown Law Center, appeared before the court in 1997. No Democrat or the media ever raised concerns about this.
The Democrats and media have claimed the court has become too partisan, with no basis for this claim. But Democrats had no problem when Justice Ginsburg accepted the Eleanor Roosevelt Award (and statue) from the National Women’s Democrat Club, a partisan organization dedicated to electing Democrats. NPR Supreme Court reporter Nina Totenberg even emceed this partisan event!
Imagine if Justice Thomas or Alito had accepted an award from the Republican National Committee. Heads would have exploded. Totenberg would have been first out of the gate condemning this brazenly unethical act. But no Democrat or reporter ever expressed concerns about Ginsburg’s openly political act or whether this would have any adverse effects on the court’s integrity.
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Refusing to RecuseIn the most unethical act by any justice in modern history, Ginsburg publicly attacked candidate Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential race to stop him from being elected. She called him a “faker” and criticized him for not releasing his taxes.
But when she made some of these unethical remarks to The New York Times Supreme Court reporter Adam Liptak, he mentioned nothing about how unethical her comments were. The headline was “Ruth Bader Ginsburg, No Fan of Donald Trump, Critiques Latest Term.” Other journalists like Linda Hirshman in Politico celebrated Ginsburg engaging in this completely unethical attack.
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A Newly Discovered Missing $1 MillionIn a new report this week, it was revealed that Ginsburg directed the $1 million prize she received in 2019 from the Berggruen Institute to be distributed to more than 60 groups, but she required that the recipients not be disclosed. Thus, there is no way to tell whether she should have recused from one of these groups appearing before the court. But when she announced she was distributing these funds, I am not aware of any Democrat being curious as to who would be getting this funding and whether they would appear before the court. Again, just switch the names from Ginsburg to Thomas and you know what would have followed.
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Source:
https://thefederalist.com/2023/07/20/democrats-concerned-with-scotus-ethics-rules-should-look-into-leftist-justices-first/
