The Daily Populous Wednesday June 12nd, 2024 morning edition
Authored by vanityfair.com and submitted by vanityfairmagazine

It seems that Samuel Alito is precisely who Democrats say he is: a partisan with little apparent concern for the legitimacy of the court on which he serves. The Supreme Court justice has tried to hide behind a thin veil of judicial independence, shrugging off the evidence of his ideological allegiance with some half-assed excuses. But the surreptitious recordings of him—and flag-enthusiast wife Martha-Ann Alito—discussing his zero-sum politics undermines all his sorry justifications, and confirms the warnings Democrats and judicial watchdogs have been issuing throughout this court’s credibility crisis. “The recordings are a testament to the arrogance of Justice Alito and his wife,” Congressman Hank Johnson, lead sponsor of the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act in the House, told me Tuesday.

“They are extremists,” Johnson continued. “These disclosures have shown a real need for the recusal apparatus to be more than just the justices deciding for themselves whether or not to recuse.”

Which makes it all the more maddening that ethics reform has remained elusive, and likely will unless and until the Senate math changes: Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin, the number two Democrat in the upper chamber, has repeatedly called for stronger ethics rules at the Supreme Court—and for Alito and Clarence Thomas to recuse themselves from cases related to the January 6 insurrection. But after an ethics hearing last year was met with GOP opposition and after once again being once again snubbed by Chief Justice John Roberts recently, Durbin has cast doubt on issuing subpoenas or taking other more aggressive measures, citing his party’s thin majority. “You need 60 votes,” the senator told the New York Times last week. “Period.” And while a Democratic Judiciary Committee staffer told me last month that they were leaving all options open, the path forward remains unclear.

That has frustrated oversight groups—and understandably so. Supreme Court ethics reform was overdue well before the latest beat in the Alito scandal broke. But, after hearing Alito on tape describing himself as a participant in a battle in which “one side or the other is going to win,” the prospect of him ruling on any case—let alone one that will decide whether Donald Trump has “immunity” from prosecution in Jack Smith’s election subversion case—is even more outrageous.

“There is deep rot within the court,” as Maggie Jo Buchanan, managing director of the court accountability group Demand Justice, told me Tuesday. “Congress must do everything possible to shine a light on their actions, as well as to explain to the American people how the justices should act,” she continued. “Even given the Republican opposition even to common sense ethics standards, there is an important opportunity to make clear how and why this MAGA movement has infected the judiciary, as well as the stakes for our country if more partisans are installed and empowered in our courts.”

What’s striking about all this, beyond the sentiments Alito and his wife expressed in the recordings, is the apparent comfort he felt in openly discussing his ideology. They are the comments of a man who regards himself as untouchable. And until Democrats are able to take action, he is. “Alito is becoming a loose cannon turned on the Court itself,” as Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, put it. “He mocks ethics.”

kia75 on June 11st, 2024 at 20:42 UTC »

Is it because he is untouchable?

The only way to get rid of him is to impeach him. Republicans will never impeach a Republican judge. Alito could kill the proverbial 5th Avenue passerby and not be impeached. Heck, I suspect that if Alito was thrown in jail, they'd find a way to make it so that he'd be able to make rulings from prison.

tobillys__ on June 11st, 2024 at 20:34 UTC »

Prove him wrong

eaunoway on June 11st, 2024 at 20:33 UTC »

We're seeing little to show us otherwise.