House Democrats have notified Supreme Court Justice John Roberts about their concerns around his actions following new reporting into Justice Samuel Alito‘s lack of dedication to the court’s code of conduct.
Raskin, the Maryland lawmaker who is the Oversight Committee’s ranking member and vice ranking member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the firebrand New York Congresswoman, penned the letter flagging Robert’s “‘highly unusual’ step of replacing Justice Alito as the author” in the Supreme Court’s opinion on a case involving the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Associate Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas pose for a group portrait on October 7, 2022, at the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. Chief Justice John Roberts, inset, joins the others for the group portrait. House Democrats have penned a letter to Roberts asking for answers about some recent actions.
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File
The letter cites reporting from The New York Times that was based on apparent leaked memos and interviews with unnamed court insiders that Roberts had asked Alito in April to write the majority opinion on Fischer v. United States before later shifting course and making the rare move of deciding to write the decision himself.
“Your decision suggests that you recognized that Justice Alito’s partisan ideological activity called into question his impartiality with regard to the Fischer matter,” the Democrats’ letter reads.
Alito had drawn public scrutiny after saying that his wife had raised an inverted flag during a dispute with their neighbors over an anti-former President Donald Trump lawn sign and that he was unaware of its ties to the false claims that the 2020 election was rigged against Trump because of widespread voter fraud.
In the letter, Raskin and Ocasio-Cortez said that they had written to Roberts previously in June about Alito’s participation in cases involving January 6 defendants and immunity for Trump. That was eight days prior to the release of the Fischer v. United States decision.
The Democrats also pointed to Justice Clarence Thomas‘ ties to the “Stop the Steal” movement. They had “raised concerns” about Thomas and his wife, Ginni Thomas.
Thomas was previously asked to recuse himself from cases involving a religious legal group after his wife reportedly thanked the conservative organization for its efforts to block Supreme Court reform.
Members of the Supreme Court sit for a group portrait in Washington, October 7, 2022.
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
“Justice Thomas recognized this conflict of interest in recusing himself from the Court’s case related to Trump attorney John Eastman, but, inexplicably, refused to recuse himself from either of the Court’s two January 6 cases, including Fischer,” the letter states.
Roberts’ counselor responded to the Oversight Committee on the Justice’s behalf saying that “each Justice has an independent obligation to decide whether he or she may participate in a case, whether or not there has been any suggestion that recusal would be appropriate.”
“For its part, federal law requires the recusal of partial judges and justices,” the letter read. “The notion that individual Justices can decide for themselves whether their own conduct violates the Constitution, federal law, or the Court’s Code of Conduct is untenable in our Republic and clearly violates the fundamental and original principle of due process that ‘no man can be a judge in his own case.'”
The Committee is asking Roberts to respond to a list of questions by October 18. The questions include whether he made the decision to replace Alito as the drafter of the Fischer opinion and if he had conversations with Alito or Thomas about their participation in cases involving January 6.
