Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) said that the Supreme Court’s silence about Clarence Thomas is not good enough and that better change.
Video:
Transcript via ABC’s This Week:
KLOBUCHAR: Jonathan, the facts are clear here. This is unbelievable. You have the wife of a sitting Supreme Court justice advocating for an insurrection, advocating for overturning a legal election to the sitting president’s chief of staff and she also knows this election, these cases, are going to come before her husband. This is a textbook case for removing him, recusing him from these decisions.
And I don’t think — all I hear is silence from the Supreme Court right now and that better change in the coming week because every other federal judge in the country except Supreme Court justices would have a guidance from ethics rules that says you got to recuse himself.
Thomas himself recused himself in 1995 from a case involving a school because his son was going to that school. Justice Breyer recused himself when his wife was on the board of an entity and that case came before the Supreme Court.
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KARL: Okay, and if he doesn’t? If he doesn’t recuse himself?
KLOBUCHAR: Justice — I mean, the entire integrity of the court is on the line here. And they had better speak out on this because you cannot have a justice hearing cases related to this election and, in fact, the ethics rules that apply to all the other federal judges say that if it involves a family member, appearance of impartiality, they have to recuse themselves.
So not only should he recuse himself, but this Supreme Court badly needs ethics rules. Chris Murphy’s leading a bill I’ve long been on — supportive of, that says basically get your act together. Get ethics rules in place. And I would hope Justice Roberts, who I respect, will stand up and get those ethics rules in place. They’ve got to do that. They should do it themselves.
However, that train has already left the station, as Thomas was the sole dissent in the case involving Trump turning over his documents to the 1/6 Committee.
It is time for the Supreme Court to handle this problem, or Congress will handle it for them. The House and Senate could quickly pass Supreme Court ethics rules and have them on President Biden’s desk, so unless SCOTUS wants Congress imposing ethics rules on them, they better do what Sen. Klobuchar suggested and handle their Clarence Thomas problem.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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