A Supreme Court lawyer dismissed questions about the court’s ethics issues in a terse response to a letter from two top Democrats to Congress.
Supreme Court Attorney Ethan Torrey Answer at the inquiry of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (DR.I.) and Repr. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), each responsible for overseeing the courts in their respective chambers.
The two congressional investigators urged Chief Justice John Roberts to answer questions about the court’s handling of ethics violations after news stories revealed a lobbying campaign by the conservative Christian group Faith & Action that led on Justice Samuel Alito to reveal the outcome of his 2014 decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby before the release.
Torrey did not respond to any questions from Whitehouse and Johnson about pending or potential ethics investigations into the leaked court opinion rejecting Roe v. Wade, or about Alito’s alleged leak of the Hobby Lobby outcome. Nor did he say which judges received gifts as part of the religious right’s lobbying campaign.
Instead, Torrey adopts the tone of a defense attorney blocking an investigative body.
“There is nothing to suggest that Justice Alito’s actions violated ethical standards,” he wrote.
Torrey’s letter simply reiterates Alito’s denial of the alleged leak, saying the New York Times report that the conservative justice leaked the Hobby Lobby conclusion to Donald and Gail Wright, two Faith & Action supporters, remained “uncorroborated.” He goes on to say that Alito did not violate ethics rules by accepting meals and lodging from the Wrights because the couple “never had a financial interest in an issue before the Court.”
“Furthermore, the term ‘gift’ is defined to exclude social hospitality based on personal relationships, as well as modest items, such as food and drink, given as a matter of social hospitality,” Torrey wrote.
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In a November 20 letter, Whitehouse and Johnson asked Roberts to say whether the court is investigating any aspect of Faith & Action’s lobbying campaign, including the accusation by former leader Rev. Rob Schenck that Alito leaked the Hobby Lobby result. Schenck had written a letter to Roberts while the chief justice was investigating the leak of the draft women’s health opinion Dobbs v. Jackson a Political.
The two members of Congress also wanted to know if the court had considered taking a tougher approach to internal ethics in light of the Schenck indictment, and asked if anyone was responsible for preventing conflicts of interest related to donations to the Historical Society of Supreme Court. Schenck says he directed supporters to access justice by donating to the society and attending its annual dinners.
Whitehouse and Johnson also asked Roberts to “designate a person with knowledge” of the court’s internal ethics issues “to testify to us about … ethical issues or to report on questions raised about the conduct of judges “.
“If the Court … is unwilling to undertake fact-finding investigations into potential ethics violations, that leaves Congress as the only forum,” Whitehouse and Johnson said.
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