Roberts Won’t Appear at Senate’s SCOTUS Ethics Hearing

Chief Justice John Roberts has declined to appear before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on potential ethics reforms for the Supreme Court, a Tuesday letter revealed.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat who chairs the Judiciary panel, had asked Roberts or another delegated justice to appear before the committee to answer questions about the bench’s rules.

However, Roberts argued that “testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee by the chief justice of the United States is exceedingly rare,” a crucial precedent for ensuring separation of powers and judicial independence.

He also attached the high court’s Statement of Ethics Principles and Practices, which all presiding justices must subscribe to.

Durbin’s decision to host the hearing stems from a ProPublica report earlier this month that accused Thomas of accepting lavish gifts and trips from Harlan Crow, a billionaire Republican donor from Texas.

“There has been a steady stream of revelations regarding justices falling short of the ethical standards expected of other federal judges and, indeed, of public servants generally,” Durbin wrote last week to Roberts, insisting that “the status quo is no longer tenable” and urging him to appear.

A Durbin spokesperson provided Politico with the senator’s reaction to the news. He suggested that Roberts was ignoring the “obvious” ethical dilemma in the Thomas affair and deferring to current standards.

“The actions of one Justice, including trips on yachts and private jets, were not reported to the public,” the spokesperson explained. “That same Justice failed to disclose the sale of properties he partly owned to a party with interests before the Supreme Court.

“It is time for Congress to accept its responsibility to establish an enforceable code of ethics for the Supreme Court, the only agency of our government without it,” they added.

It comes after news broke that Justice Neil Gorsuch sold a vacation property to Brian L. Duffy, the chief executive of Greenberg Traurig, for an undisclosed amount in 2017 after he was appointed to the court.