Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (RI) asked Chief Justice Roberts to investigate conservative Justice Samuel Alito.
Whitehouse sent a letter to Roberts demanding an ethics investigation into Alito over his recent comments about the Supreme Court in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
“I know this is a controversial view, but I’m willing to say it,” Alito told The Wall Street Journal in July. “No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period.”
“Justice Alito’s decision to opine publicly on the constitutionality of that bill may well embolden legal challenges to the bill should it become law. Indeed, his comments encourage challenges to all manner of judicial ethics laws already on the books,” Senator Whitehouse wrote in a letter first obtained by the Washington Post.
The Hill reported:
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) on Monday urged Chief Justice John Roberts to investigate Justice Samuel Alito over his recent comments about Supreme Court ethics.
In a seven-page letter, Whitehouse lodged an ethics complaint about Alito’s recent interview with The Wall Street Journal’s opinion section, in which the conservative justice said Congress has no authority to regulate the high court.
Whitehouse, a leading critic in the Senate of ethics standards at the Supreme Court, urged Roberts to “take whatever steps are necessary” to probe the matter.
“On the Senate Judiciary Committee, we have heard in every recent confirmation hearing that it would be improper to express opinions on matters that might come before the Court. In this instance, Justice Alito expressed an opinion on a matter that could well come before the Court,” he wrote.
Earlier this year Chief Justice John Roberts declined to testify before Congress about Supreme Court ethics as Democrats ramp up their harassment campaign against Clarence Thomas.
The Democrat-media complex has been harassing Clarence Thomas because their ultimate goal is to expand the Supreme Court.
In April Propublica launched an attack on Clarence Thomas because he took vacations with a billionaire Republican donor.