their free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of funded by these television companies and more, including charter communications. >> charter is proud to be recognized as one of tand we ar. building 100,000 miles of new infrastructure it most. >> charter communications supports c-span as a public service, alo with ese other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. democrats on the house oversight and accountability committee held discussion on the supreme court ethics after reports revealed republican donors paid for luxury trips for justices clarence thomas and samuel

alito. book sale proceeds for justice sonia sotomayor and gifts cl justice ketanji brown jackson. justice for controversy political flags flown at two of his homes and a recent secret audio recording with a justice talking about religion and politics with a liberal acvist. this is 2 1/2 hours. welcome everybody to our democratic roundtable, entitled a high low standards and dark money, flagging a supreme ethics crisis in america. me terrific panelists appearing in different panels with us this afternoon. i want to start by thanking my distinguished vice raking member of the oversight committee from new york for her superb outstanding work on this panel, and i do hope it is the beginning of her journey perhaps

to law school. she could go to law school part-time. this is what senator robert byrd did. i know that because he went to law school where i taught, american university, and he went on preeminent constitutional champion in the senate. a position now held by our first witness from the u.s. senate, senator sheldon whitehouse, who represents rhode island. he is the chair of the house-senate budget committee, and he has been working expertly to try to restore both the integrity and reputation of th supreme court and to specifically combat the infiltration of dark money into the federal judiciary for many years. !jwe are going to make our openg statements and then turned it over to you, senator whitehouse, unless you need to get back to the senate for a vote right now. >> i am at your pleasure. >> welcome and thank you for

joining us. i will recognize myself now for my opening statement. then i willrecking member. the crisis on the supreme court it is not just the ethical crisis which the whole country doctrinal and political crises as well. these are interlocked and are mutually reinforcing and it all adds up to one profound of constitutional legitimacy in the country. the seminal moment for understanding our current situation took place in 2000, with the 5-4 supreme court decision in bush versus gore to intervene in florida's electoral process to stop the counting of ballots, thereby handing for president bush the national popular vote loser of the presidency on the most fallacious and dubious of grounds. court never explained why blocking the counting more than 100,000 votes vindicated equal

protection, a constitutional principle a completely abandoned of course when it came to the rights of racial minorities and women, nor did the right wing justices show much logic or integrity of their own ruling when they said, "our consideration is limited to the present circumstances for the problem of equal protection and electi processes generally present many complexities." that reasoning offered to deny any presidential -- is of course the precise opposite of the rule of the precise opposite of the rule of law -- of the rule of law which depe lead to the exquisite logical paradox that if you followed bush versus gore, you cannot treat the case as president, and says you cannot treat it as president, then the it cannot be precedent itself shouldn't be

followed. in practice, hundreds of federal state decisions have cited various aspects of this outrageous decision.■g for our purposes of understanding, the supreme court's public reputation is in the gutter today, the key point is that george w. bush's 5-4 victory in the supreme court allowed him not only to game john roberts as chief justice, but to replace moderate justice that are day o'connor with samuel alito, antiunion pro-nra federal society lawyer and judge. everything would have been completely today if al gore had not been denied the presidency by the supreme court. and we had in the place of justices alito and thomas today, speaking hypothetically, larry tribe and charlotte isil. but that new right wing 5-4

■lhich included clarence thomas, who astonishingly replaced thurgood marshall as appointee of george h. w. bush, proceeded to dramatically erode people and set the stage for a premises.e o there are many relevant cases in this genre, but consider this key one, in 2013, and shelby county versus holder, the five right-wing justicecut the heart out of the voting rights act ofip■ 1965 by essentially nullifying the central section five federal preclearance mechanism by finding that the section forhp coverage formula s now obsolete and dysfunctional because there was no more racism in the political system. in dissent, justice ruth bader ginsburg likened it to somewhat decided to go over there umbrella in a rainstorm because they weren't getting wet. this decision, within weeks or months, led to a dramatic

in voter suppression and disenfranchisementnd skins throughout the south and in other areas, with 15 states canceling online voter registration, early voting, mail-in balloting, same-day voter registration and other reforms and imposing serious new blockades and obstacles to participation including photo i.d. laws, regular mass urges in the voting rolls of voters who missed a single election. and the closure of 868 polling places predominately in african-american communities, all in the three years immediately after the decision getting the voting rights act and leading up to the 2016 president election. although hillary clinton trumped by more than two point 5 million votes nationally in the popular vote, he still eked out an election college -- electoral college which are in 20 the popular vote loser then came to

three right-wing supreme court justices of his own, neil gorsuch, brett kavanaugh and amy coney barrett, all three under a radically questionable and dubious circumstances. neil gorsuch got the seat that president obama had nominated judge merrick garland to -- garland was the chief judge of d.c. circuit court of ad was arguably, indisputably in my mind, one of the most qualified pelenominated to the supreme court. disclosed a vacancy created by the death of justice scalia in february of 2016. president obama nominated merrick garland to fill the vacancy on march 16, 2016, but senator mitch mcconnell, and his wisdom, said there would be no hearings or votesause men like before the new presidential people should decide. with only nine months to go.

of course, the people had decided when president obama was elected■zóv to one of those gene bona fide constitutional four- year terms as president. but mcconnell successfully blocked any hearings into the garland at any consideration of nomination. the seat remained vacant when president obama left office. then when trump got in, he immediately nominated in the right, neil gorsuch. to demonstrate how arrogant and devil may care the right wing has gotten about running roughshod over all principles andght interfere with co-absolute determination to control the judiciary including the normsavp themselves in the past, consider that when justice ginsburg died on september 18, 2020, less tha two months before the general election, when early voting had already started in several

states, mcconnell literally laughed at the idea that he would bound by the president he had created just for years before in the senate with the merrick garland nomination's. the senate proceeded to ram through amy coney barrett's nominatli thief in the night. everyone here presumably understands what happened there and a new documentary is coming out on the brutal miscarriage of justice that took place. now donald trump is bragging all over america that "after 50 years of close, i was able to kl a roe v. wade, much to the shock of everyone." he and mitch mcconnell packed at the stacks and gerrymandered the court and now this right-wing corporate court, carefully designed to destroy roe v. wade as diffuse right-wing religion withrate

power, has been demolishing women's abortion rights law,, civil liberties environmental law, worker' rights, consumer rights, and training government power and people whenever they conflict. the court has been behaving like a rabid partisan actor. a few weeks ago, in alexander versus south carolina naacp, another 6-3 ruling, the right-wing we majority up held congressional redistricting plan that the plaintiffs described as a blatant racial gerrymander designed to thwart and dilute the voting rights of african-american voters in south carolina. but the right wing majority held that the african-american plaintiffs failed to show that the legislature was motivated by race when it relocated thousands of black voters out of the first congressional district, dramatically changing the political balance of power that

district. justice alito held for the majority instead that the legislature was merely seeking to make the seat cipro for republicans, which is a legitimate goal, he said, and does not violate equal protection. under this court, it violates equal protection when florida just tries to count ballots in florida. but it doesn't violate equal protection when african-american voters are drawn out of a congressional dic create a safe way to majority republican district. constitutional doctrine has been reduced in this court to assume the blatantly unjust and thoroughly ideological decisions like these, upholding white political supremacy, racial inequality, corporate power, and right wion institutions. all the lectures about textualism and originalism today are nothing but a fraud on the public. i want to get into that today, and i want to talk about the citizens united if we get a

chance, with senator whitehouse, and i want to talk about the jurisprudence. but the right-wing justices, five of them named to the court by bush and trump, the twopresis century to the presidency after losing the popular vote, now act entirely like thwhich represents a small minority of the american people. it is no coincidence that justice, and mrs. alito brandished the flag symbolsqh of right wing nationalists. no coincidence that justice thomas takes millions of dollars from his right wing corporate sugadaddies.f/ after all, if you can decide presidential elections with 5-4 and voten bush v gore, if you can gerrymander it not just congress, but the supreme court itself by denying the party a

hearing, why can't you not have friend in the court fly you to bali for vacation or pay for your family members■■ private tuition or value a recreational vehicle, or send you an lavish all expense paid vacation? why the hell not? the highest court in the land today has the lowest ethical standards, and yet, only jurists in the federal system who are traditionally given the honorific "justice" rather than judge. yet with theiropsided and ideological jurisprudence, assaulting the rights of the people, and with their obscene ethical transgressions, they have completely forfeited their right to be called justice. and unless i forget to do it from now on, they are just judge alito and judge thomas to me at best. i look forward to hearing from w we got into thislists today predicament, and how we can get out. and i happy turn -- i will

recognize the advice of ranking member, ms. ocasio-cortez, for any remarks she sees fit to give. rep. ocasio-cortez: thank you so much, mr. chairman, ranking member raskin. it's an honor for us to convene and discuss arguably one of the most critical issues before american democracy today. and with respect to law school, maybe if you are my professor, mr. ranking■é member -- [laughs] -- i would be happy to explore the possibility. but back to the matter at hand. the supreme court is currently facing a grave crisis of legitimacy, crisis of its own making. about 50 years ago, a group of powerful wealthy conservative operatives, look around and realized that they were losing. in 1964 the civil rights act had passed prohibiting discrimination in the united

states on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national at a time when rivers were literally catching fire fromol federal government created the environmental protection agency finally taking a measure of responsibility for the health and safety of working people and our climate, and confronting polluters and corporaon process. and most alarmingly, to these later in 1973, the supreme court decided roe v. wade, giving women reproductiver -- enshrining a right to privacy, and marking a major advancement for bodily rights and autonomy. the nation was changing. it was changing to more fully realized our country's promised -- for democracy for the people, by the people, with liberty and justice for all. but the snow world, a

multiracial democracy with civil and economic rights enshrined, threatened the power of the very people who relied on this discrimination and segregation of others. these wealthy conservative men knew they couldn't win the argument on merits. so they hatched a plan assault on the american judicial system. in 1973, the same year as roe v. wade, the heritage foundation was born, and with that, a decades-long scheme to push back on these ideals and cement a hierarchy that these men, the elite 1%, could remain on top to roll back our rights. today we are here to talk about how they did it andwin the strur american democracy. they did not have popular

support. they did not haveoffice. but what they did have was money, and a lot of it. one ofhe -- leonard leo. he became one of the movement to correct the court of most prolific fundraisers. he organized right wing billionaires to shore up infrastructure process and seats on the supreme court wholesale. he funded group after group to spread he is his billionaire friends' reactionary ideology. such as oil and gas magnet charles koch, hedge fund manager paul singer and nazi paraphernalia collector harlan. the swron of the "biggest privae landlord in the united states ."

these billionaires have never they are unknown by the vast majority of americans. yet, they worked with shadowy extremists, t-figures lo create a corruption rating of influence that reached the highest levels of our country and our courts. these billionaires hatched a plan to use massive floods of anonymous donations, political of his condition, and outright gifts and ethics violations to reshape the courts. and so far, to this day, they haveerlet's be clear. justices clarence thomas and samuel alito are deeply subject to and are exactly the agenda of these billionaires. and they act like it. just loo■k at clarence omas, whose corruption is almost comical. secret trips to retreats. international vacations on super

yachts, and private jet jaunts to new haven for an afternoon. we in congress are prohibited from receiving gifts that exceed $50. but justice thomas has received more than $4 million in gifts, largely undisclosed, since joining the court. and worse, it appears to be working. he is currently primed to can side with charles koch's network and their oil and france. the same charles koch who he secretly vacationed with. or take his friendship with billionaire paul sinore undiscld private jet by a shift in the courtship of decision to take upown case. coincidentally, after justice trip to alaska with paul singer,

the supreme court took up his case, ultimately leading him to a victory netting 2.4 billion dollars. this was not a bad return on singer's $80 million in political donations, a fishing trip and a couple bottles of thousand dollar wine. and of course, and their handpicked justices won their keystone victory against the american people and their progress of the society -- the overturned roe v. wade. ■rso why was it abortion? why was the threat of women having freedomowerful enough to bring down our whole system of digital ethics and article i that's because these rich and powerful men are in an status quo that enshrines their power and places them above the american public in the rules. the confluence of money and is no coincidence, and we are here today to connect

the dots. the group behind the dobbs challenge was predlse -- leonard found a friendly court in front of right wing extremists. and we have also seen as well as the conservative justices clarence thomas and justice samuel alito. after all, these justices continue to agree to this bargain by continuing to accept and engage in the spring of influence and financial persuasion. this brings us to the cross of the -- the crux of the matter and why we are holding this hearing. the supreme court as it stands today is delegitimizing itself. americans are losing fundamental right in the process. reproductive health care, civil liberties, voting rights, the right toh[ organize clean air ad water, because the supreme court has been captured and corrupted by many.

-- by money. it is the entire strategy that led us to this point. a group of antidemocratic billionaires with their own ideological and economic agenda, has been working one of the three coequal branches of government. and let's be clear, the supreme court is a coequal branch of government. they do not reign supreme overéz congress for the white house. this is the very core crisis legitimacy and it is a core crisis within the court of our multiracial democracy, and of who we are as a country. theof the court not only lies in the port, it lies in congress. and it's not do, but if we let it happen. this to happen. we must treat this moment like the emergency it is and use

every tool in our in our■t democracy's arsenal to fight back. of our democracy depends on it the future of our democracy depends on it. with that, i yield back to the ranking member. rep.■h raskin: thank you very much. we will open with our fast panel, which is senator sheldon he has been blowing the whistle on the ethical and constitutional deteriorationeb■ñ the supreme court for several years now, and he has focused a lot of his energy on mapping out the dark-money networks behind the corruption of the supreme court. he has a book which i recommend highly to you all called "the scheme: how the right wing used dark money to capture the supreme court." he's introduced a lot of legislation to curb anonymous dark-money groups, including the end tax breaks for dark money act, which would close tax code to avoid capital gains taxes by donating money to dark money

groups. and the disclosure act, which would require groups that spend money supporting or opposing judicial nominees to disclose who their donors are from what i want to welcome you, senator whitehouse. it has been a pleasure to work with you on this and alsoon of s industry's complicity with the cover-up. science relating to climate -- the cover-up of the science relating to climate change. you have a few remarks. sen. whitehouse: thank you very much congressman raskin, it's a pleasure to be with you and with vice ranking member ocasio-cortez. and a particular shout-out also to congressman hank johnson, who has the coordinate position that i have, which is theea democrat on the courts subcommittee of the judiciary committee, and who has been outstanding to work with across several years and many issues. the context for this conversation is rooted in the

doctrines of regulatory capture and agency capture. these are doctrines about which there is mhe, and also much sad experience. some decades ago, the evil genius of thech was to take the tactics of regulatory capture, agency capture, and apply them not to administrative agencies, back to our courts, particularly to our supreme court. have seen the judicial selection process, nominally run through the federalist society, you can't actually find recommendations or support for the so-called trump list. that was cooked up in a room somewhere by leonard leo

funding billionaires. the selection process puts them on the court, then the billionaire gifts program kicks in to make sure that the amenable justices are provided lifestyl#es of the rich and famous. at the billionaires fund dark-many factories in friendly think tanks and universities, and the doctrines that are cookedor question the doctrine recently applied, are then brought to the court through the tillers of i in sort of 10 to 15-number flotillas, but sometimes as many as 50, in the cases where the billionaires really want to signal hard to their handpicked justices ththid

course, the whole thing is juiced with dark money funding all of these various enterprise also finding senate republicans, who then obediently provide confirmation for the selected justices. what are we doing about that over in the senate? i will give you a quick run through. first of all, we have been trying to put a heav chief, to d within the judiciary for it to manage its own. we have seen some success from that, the supreme court has gone from, don't bother us, go away, to, ok, here is a letter signed by all nine of us to discuss the position that we take with regard to our ethics. two, ok, that didn't work, here is an ethics code we are

adopting for ourselves with a few modifications, and most importantly, no investigation, so they gaps in where we are. the nine justices of the u.s. supreme are the only officials in the entirety of the u.s. government as to whom when an ethics challenge is raised, there is no fact-finding done. even the president had to be interviewed about the status of documents in his garage. not these nine. they are the only one the pressure campaign has worked , to the degree that they are east nominally under an ethics code, but we need to keep the pressure on until they join the rest of the government and having a real ethics code with real fact-finding and some prospects for comparing the facts that are found to the

rules. that is avenue avenue two is one. legislation, the ethics bill we have through the senate judiciary committee waiting for a vote. i expect we will have that vote in this congress. and a term-limit bill, and i want to congratulate congressman johnson for his term limits bill. we don't have perfect alignment between our bills, but we are pointing in the same direction, and we are not going to pass them until the voters put democrats in charge and at that point, i think we are close enough that we can easily reconcile our bills and provide real term limits that the public really likes for supreme court that 3rd avenue is investigation. i sit on the judiciary committee and on the finance committee. both committees havein investige activities. the judiciary committee gave chairman durbin subpoena authority, and that investigations are being pursued with the powena

authority.■x i would note that the power of that subpoena authority has been somewhat limited by the loud declarations by republican thatf those subpoenas should not comply with them, and that they would never allow them to be enforced if the subjects refused to respond. so, i hope and pray that the table, when the house is issuing subpoenas in the space, that aren't subject to the senate filibuster. on the finance side, the finance committee develop the information that the quarter million dollar loan for juic was never repaid. some interest was paid, then all payments stopped. we can today to look into the final facts of what actually took place. but no principal on a quarter million dollar loan appears ever to have been

repaired. harlan crowe appears to be playing tax games with the yacht that he took justice thomas around indonesia on. and then in some places, he called it a pleasure yacht. in some cases he called it a charter yacht. we interviewed his crew who said he could never remember a charter, yet he took millions of dollars in tax deductions as if it were a charter yacht. it looks a lot like a deductinge expense of operating his own toys, which is not what the tax code permits. . so that remains under further investigation. the 4th avenue, has been working with the judicial conference other distinguished senior judges, chief judges from circuit and district courts, who are the oversightodr the judicial branch within the judicial branc it's a body established by congress to enforce laws passed by congress, and they have given two victories for transparency and integrity that i think are

very important. "scalia trick." the scalia trick was to arrange for the owner of a private resort to invite justice scalia on the free vacation, and then vacation on the theory that the free vacation gifted by the owner of the resort whom he may never have met, was a personal invitation. end as a personal invitation, it therefore amounted to personal hospitality and needn't be disclosed. we believe he took over 60, 60 of these free, i raised vacations. the judicial conference took a look at that and blew it to smithereens, fly in any circuit court or any

district court in theecy for tr, if you go back to my description , it involved communicating to the justices what it was that the billionaire interest wants through these flotillas of front group amici, who would then not disclose who was really behind them. in one occasion, a brief was filed by an entity which is not even a real corporate entity it it was the fictitious name under separate corporate entity under which fictitious name that had d to do business. they didn't dnd to the other ps who the real corporate entity was for whom this was the fictitious name. and, week the judicial conference announced its new rule demanding significantly

better disclosure pulled the bad ws have a rogue court captured by special interestn that over and over again in a appalling pattern, continuing to follow the direction)gfund grous through which they operate. the good news is the public is fed up, congress is fed up, mostly, and the judicial conference is beginning to tighten the rules on the supreme court justices. pointing out that the case is often made that congress hasot say about it regulating the ethical conduct of the supreme court justices. the supremurt justices owned behavior belies that notion. when the first round of harlan

cole -- harlan crow to clarence thomas gift of free yachtavel c0 questions were for where, to the judicial conference, a body established by congress, for what, for review under the disclosure laws passed by congress. through all of that process we that point out weaknesses in the process at the time, but with didn't happen in that process was for justice thomas and any other supreme court justice to say, you have no authorityme, ie disclosure rules, you cannot investigate me, there is even a remedy, if it looks like the failure to disclose was wul for disclosure for a proper full investigation, and that question, whether harlan crow to justice thomas second round of gift should be referred to as

before the judicial conference right now. click thank you very much, we are now going to enter into our q&a portion. each member of the oversight committee will be given five minutes. we are delighted to be joined by hank johnson, our colleague from georgia who chairs the subcommittee on the court there. we are going to give you your five minutes as well. i am going to kick it off with this, what is the relationships in the white house between the private corruption of the justices and the public corruption of justice? because you can imagine if we had a squeaky clean justice alito and a squeaky clean justice thomas and so on, they could still be visiting all of this damage and all of our legal doctrines. somehow to me it seems like it's not just a coincidence and a happenstance that we get the steamroller against all of the legislative output of the civil rights movement, the women's

movement, at the same time that we get the astounding private corruption of the justices. just wondering your reflections on that. ■# to prove bias in the other side would probably settle. so the pattern is very, very telling. and if you think back to where it agency capture which is court

capture came from, began with lk put in their folks under the railroad commission so that the railroad rates and commissions that would be exactly what the railroad owners wanted. so the model fits, the pattern fits, and what else fits is where there is a discrepancy between where conservative doctrine would take you and where the interests of the billionaires behind the scheme would take you, they check the conservative doctrine, kick it to the curb and go with what they know is wanted, there's ob of that than citizens unitedp, whih is about the least originalist historically based decision you could poss i>> it has nothing te original meaning. >> if you want to find the original you have to look to the defense.

he right wing does seem to be very anxious about what's ■going on in america today because american people reject all this. people understand the idea of an umpire calling balls it in his confirmation hearings before you, they know that umpires don't put up flags of one of the teams and umpires don't have their wives lobbying to overturn the results of the last game, and they know that empires are not given million dollar chips by the owners of the specific teams and so on. so they've got a real problem. but what they are saying now is that we are violating the separation of powers by compromising judicial independence by not allowing them to be the judge in their own case and decide about their own ethical impartiality to make specific supreme court decisions. whatut you have thought a lot about that, is this an assault on the powers te

american people and their representatives in congress are trying to get a hold of this ethical crisis? >> it is no more an assault on the separation of powers then congress providing ethics and disciplinary rules for executive branch officials would be. which do all the time. >> and we've done for decades. >> in fact, we have seen senior executive branchfficials get prosecuted as criminals for 18 usc 1001 false statement violations for failures to disclose gifts and emoluments that are pretty minor when you consider the scale of the billionaire gift program for the amenable justices. >> and if we are not have these overlapping checks and balances, why do we haveremt justices and convict them? why do we have theowntrol theire

power to control the appellate calendar and their appellate jurisdictions? that argument seems overwrought to me. i want to ask you about judicial recusal. there has been a clamor in the country to try to get justices alito recruits from -- recuse from january 6 cases before the supreme court right now. one relates to president trump's extraordinary indication of the idea of absolute former presidential immunity from prosecution for have been committed while in office and thestatute. but, i have been advancinghe idea that the department of justice could seek a writ of mandamus to try to get the supreme court to compel these federal officials who are the supreme court justices to's -- to recuse themselves in

law and doctrine, chief justice roberts has come out very quickly and said, no, that cannot happen, the court is not going to get involved, what is it we can do to try towñ vindicate the very intuitive notion that no judge, no person should be a judge in his or her own case? >> the most obvious thing that we could do would be to make sure that there is proper and honest fact-finding about what actually took place. the baseline for any process of law is proper neutral fact-finding. everywhere you go,e subject to r fact-finding when claims are xcept for nine individuals who are the supreme court justices. and we have seen this play out in the recusal context thomas hr

to disclose what the facts are about what he knew about his wife's insurrection activity and when he knew it, which is the absolutely set of facts that determine whether he should have recused himself in january 6 related cases. similarly we have seen justice alito discussing his multiple maga battle flags make factual assertions that areem■: not true as regards the timing of the in situ and so forth. so just getting the facts right will make a really important difference. nobody can go -- a supreme court employee -- then no supremert staff attorney could go in and say, sir, we've had this allegation about you, we need to settle it.

i need an hour of your time to answer some questions. this is a's -- this is a formal statement for purposes of the way the federal law a response to truth telling, could you tell me about this, that in the other and at the end when we are done, would you mind signing the statement? that does not impede separation of powers at all and they could set tha up readily, then at least you would have a true statement of what the facts compared to how everybody else in the judiciary behaves. quick thank you flying the flage side up and reading the constitution in a forwa direction. i will yell now to miss ocasio-cortez. >> thank you senator for joining us today. you mentioned your opening remarksm.

the judicial conference that the body created by congress in 1922 well over 100 year sicko to it and enforce rules on the judicial branch, the judicial conference was created to address unethical conversations, almost exactly the kind seeing in clarence thomas case in samuel alito's case. and it is meant to really sort through, as you mention about wn these situations arise, but proe are running up against when it i believe it is that the courtd has to allow investigations and comply with investigations by the judicial conference. and i think that's where we) get to the crux of one of the crises

from the court. which is the role of chief justice roberts in how he esides of the court, the decisions that he is making with this misconduct going on, can you tell us about how the supreme court and specifically the chief justice have addressed these scandals and responded to your oversight attempts, and has the court indicated a path forward in terms of how they seem to■■■ engage in oversight investigation? like the chief justi ichair of l conference, he is the only member of the court who■# participates in it and in that role he has allowed the judicial nference to kill off the scalia trick and he has allowed the judicial conference to investigate justice thomas's dealings with harlan crow and

ongoing investigation right now, and he has allowed it to begin the process of cleaning up the secret fake and the flotilla's. he could do more, i suspect he could do more as chief justice, it strikes■te that if this is the court that could take away women's rights to their bodily autonomy by a simple affecting 160 million people in this country, rough n, they ought to, by simple be able to apply themselves the same kind of ethics procedures every judge has to follow. quakes can you speak a little bit as well as to some of the direct engagement between the court in congress directly, as

you mentionedhere are oversight investigations happening in the senate from the senate itself, and as you mentioned in your opening remarks, that you may have some republican colleagues thatclaimt should not comply■h should a subpoena to issued by congress into the court. i think it's very important for us to understand the crisis that that could potentially present. as three coequal branches of congress, if the supreme court refuses or would the potential subpoena issued by congress, what would be the implications of such a radical act, and what could that unleash on our democracy? >> we may have to find out.

for now, what we know is that the chief justice has declined repeated invitations, both to come to a senate judiciary hearing and even to meet wh judy committee to discuss the problems over at the court in the context of the request for him to discuss the mostwhat i ce maggot battle -- maga battle flags. justice alito intervened without interest -- without an invitation from congress and senate chairman ■durbin and i a letter with his version of events. so, theybeen completely incommunicado the way justice thomas has been know ong thing about justice thomas's engagement with us.

he is generally completely to qt ethics and facts, but when the judicial conference exploded the scalia trick, that's the one time when he■ú had something to say. and what he said was, i will co with this new rule. and everybody in washington looked at, i will comply and got completely transfixed with that but his lawyers -- as lawyers in the room would know, the operative language in that sentence is, this new rule. the explosion of the scalia trick was described by the clarification, which means retroactive, w■hich means he and justice alito would have to go back and clean up filings. so the only time he has spoken of the -- these issues said this new rule, he was closing a door

for■ hself in contrast of the language actually used in the letter to me by the judicial conference in the judicial conference is now reviewing whether, when they said clarification, they meant clarification, and if they make that decision, we will learn a lote gifts program. >> very briefly, so much of the structure of our democracy, governance relies on checks and balances, the system of checks and balances between these three coequal branches of government. and, much of that authority of the court, when the court overrules t congress, the expecs that those branches would comply with the ruling of the court. and this comes to a court basis of enforcement and i suppose the question i would pose is, if the

court does not comply with congress, wet mechanism and authority do they wish to assert or use to have congress comply with them? >> there is a biting tension that congressman raskin probably knows better than anyone in separation of power between the separation of the branches and the co-inequality of the branches as checks and balances on one another. and that is very much the center of the conversation we were having with the court right now and with some of our republican colleagues who see only the separation of the powers but don't see the koa quality of the checks and balances. >> thank you very much, i'm going to move quickly now because senator whitehouse is going to have to leave at five:

15. i and then i'm coming to ms. stansberry. hopefully we will get in the others but we will pick up with you guys in the next panel. you are recognized for five minutes. click senator whitehouse i would like to ask you about dark money. i would like you to discuss dark money is, who controls it, and what is the purpose of this so-called dark money? >> dark money is the rot in our democracy right now. it is ntrolled by definition, 5 billion and wealthy special interests whoave ability to spend millions and millions of dollars in politics. the motive to spend millions and millions of dollars in politics and that desire to obscure her from the public who they are when they spend it so they

cannot be held accountable for their political intervention into our democracy. we have the ability to cure it, if you read the citi■8zens unitd decision closely, it stands for the proposition that dark money is corrupting, which is why it went through the elaborate pretense about how all this money would be transparent. so, we can fix it, the disclose act would of hr one in the last congress when i hope th the voters vote for reform in the coming elections that we are able to pass that villa and clear the dark money out of our politics. as a climate advocate, i watches in the senate dropped dead january of 2010 from a very robust bipartisan conversation in which the flag carrier, john

mccain for the republican party and at presidential race at a perfectly good climate platform to, like a heart -- heart attack, if that lined up to january 2010, the date of the citizens united conversation and no republican in the senate has joined a seriousce. so it has a real effect that i think the fossil fuel industry spends a lot of the dark money, so they are happy at the situation they created and postponing climate regulation for over a decade. . >> what is t dark money spent on, and how does -- how is dark money utilized to help the outcome of supreme court decisions? >> the most immediate and direct money under the purest definition of the term is money

that is spent in politics by hidden special interests. so a specialntnds $20 million to a front group, the front group flips it pac, the sn spends it in support of or against a candidate in only reports the front group. obviously the big special interests will comnicate to the candidate they are supporting. we just spent $20 million for you, it's only the public that's left for you in the dark, but it also supreme court through these front groups that have low flotilla's who by virtue of not disclosing to the court or to the other parties can obscure the factha keys on the same piano, it's a concerted effort, it's a set of dark many cords that are preventing the argument in harmony toes.

and if there is one consistency with the right wing justices, it's their alignment with what's provided by those dark money groups. >> i would like to ask you how dark money is utilized to help sway the outcome of supreme court decisions. for example, in terms of the and confirmation of judgesadministrations? >>ld say i've used the phrase that this is the court that dark money built. and it built it through contributions to the republican party, it built it through front groups that were stood up, that don't reveal who their real funding is. who then go out and lobby for issues and file an amicus brief

issues and in many ways litiga cases as the re-party -- real party in interest. they will find a party of convenienceaintiff, but those oo are lawyers know usually the client goes to find a lawyer. when you've got cases forlawyert to bring a case, that's a little bit of a red flag.so it comes tt this whole scheme effort. ñ■%>> thank you to the ranking member fischer having this hearing because the american people deserve answers and accountability. and not only are we seeing an

ethical crisis in front ofhe supreme court, but it's really an institutional crisis because democracy, the separation of powers, coequal of government and their role in american democracy. i want to be clear from the top this is one of, if not, the most blatantly political and activists courts we have ever seen in american history. i we discussed here today, captured by special interests, dark money and mega donor and voming the very fabric of american rights to democracy has been every decision. abortion, clean air act, clean water act, climate change, soon to■m be executive authorities, d presidents that have stood, not only for decades and back into the 19th century, but it's not just the courts, we' i. the same dark money interests and mega donors we are talking

about appear befores through their proxies every single day on the witness stand. in fact we have had witnesses that are funded by the very same donors we are talking abouterng narratives that undermine the legislive branch, the very same institutional, democratic ad and ideas that americans have held dear for so long. ■and we have seen it time and time again. folks to understand as we have been discussing here,this is somethin built er a decade by these mega donors and the organizations that they founded and they fund. the coke brothers, the divorces, the harlan crow's, and those they funded like donald trump that they advocated to be

appointed to and then funded the campaign to make sure they got through the senate confirmation process and also funded the public campaigns to ensure that they got there. while -- meanwhile, please justices and their families have been going o multimillion dollar vacations on yachts and private planes funded by the very same billionaires while they have the actualint of thesh these dark money organizations. but, i want to just say, you don't have to take our word for it because a picture says a thousand words, or in this case, a 4 million dollars dark money contribution to your supreme court justices. here we have justice thomas with harlan crow, who incidentally was representing a witness in front of our committee just a few weeks ago. leonard leo and ter tledge on vacation together. here we have justice thomas and

ginni thomas with harlan crow in indonesia. andonesia. a trump rally. and as we all know, not only is she a mega supporter of donald trump and funded by the same organizations in the justice project that has business before the court that her husband sits on, she helped to plan the january 6 insurrection. and here we have justice alito on a fishing guided ship with paul singer, another mega donor. here they are, they caught some e#good fish year in 2008. and of course, as we all have seen in the last couple of weeks, these flags fly alito's h house right after january 6, in his own personal house aligned with, of course, the stop the steal january 6 movement. and here is the entire cast of characters brought to you and

funded by dark money in their candidates right here with donald trump and ginni thomas and their appointees. it is fair to say that we not only have a traditional crisis but an actualinstitutions that r democracy. e're talking about here. that is part of whycosponsor of, which mr. johnson is leading on in the house. which is why i introduced a bill with representative raskin to bring in an inspector general to the supreme court. what the american people really want to know and i get asked this every single day when i am back home as they want some real talk. how are we going to get this given the political reality of where we are right now. at.

given where the court is at. how are we going to get meaningful judicial reform? >> the gentlelady's■# time has expired. >> in the dark days of the early world war ii years before america came in full force, winston churchill said to america, "■ve us the tools and we will finish the job." i think that's what we need the. give us your trust. give us the tools. the job. >> i couldn't have said it better. thank you, mr. chairman. ss stansberry and the distinguished gentlewoman from texas is recognized. >> i am cognizant of yourime

because i am so thankful not only for your expertise, and i want to tap for those that are watching, and don't realize lthe amazing attorney that you are which allows you to be well informed as you are crafting legislation. i want to make sure we get you out of here somewhat on time. so i will noting from my prepared remarks instead i just want to talk about a couple of things. over and over especially this term is this idea of a two-tiered justice system. we have heard that term used in know how many times. i want to walk you through a couple of things. and tell me if there really seems to be some differences to specific courts. when we look at our lower federal courts. whether we are talking about the appellate or the trial agree ths

some form of ethics that is in place for our lower courts that somehow is absent from your high court? >> that is correct. >> when we look at things such as this idea of when a recusal should be in place. if i walk into a child court right now and iindiscernible] a recusal should take placelx, e have a similar scenario taking place in georgia state court, where there are those that believe a recusal should take place. while the trial court has ruled, they have the option of going to an appellate court. in the case of what has been laid out by so many of my colleagues as it relates to potential conflicts becauseour wife is potentially one of the perpetrators of january 6, or

and also, obviously, we have dealt with the upside down flags that are assigned of solidarity with those same january 6 descendants. what type of recourse do we have when there is a conflict that exists? when i say conic this, there are people that have never been anywhereea school that are saying even a blind man can. what is the recourse on the supreme court. is there a recourse on the court when a justicees they are not going to recuse themselves from what needs to be a very obvious conflict? >> at the moment, there is i age some sortfd justice system that's playing out in our country. ■;but it seems like the two-tied justice system is inuring to the

benefit of the highest court in the land from what i can ascertain. asgue has already laid out, ms. stansbury, the people want to know what we're going to do. as one of the cochairs for the court reform task force,repushio hopefully see brought to fruition. obviously, we're not doing this in a full committee hearing because the people that are running the madhouse right now are not here for it. but we are, because we believe in law and order and overall rule of law. when we talk about things such as expanding the court, is there a history in this country of expanding the supreme court? >> it has been done by congress. >> it has been done by congress

at leastev the last time was in 1869. i know thisssarily your area of expertise, but would you agree that this country has growju a little bit since 1869? >> the population has considerably increased. we can agree on that. >>■h in addition to that, as someone who has practiced in state court and federal, term limits exist in some form in a number of state court systems, but we don't have it on the federal level. can you explain to us how potentially imposing term limits on the supreme could allow forefully some of the harms that we see coming through the court, some of the terrible influence, to hopefully, finally make its way out of the court? >> limits for the court would, among other things, allow

for a regularso that the court n by the random impact of random fact of who a president is at the time a vacancy emerges. maybe not entirely take it away but make far less credible the effort that was done to stop and install justice gorsuch in his place. it would make it far more regular and ordinary. ■nand it would make it more difficult for partisan justices to time their departure from the court to make sure their party

gets to fill the vacancy. theyut they seem to try to clear out i am the presidency of their own party. >> thank you, ms. crockett. i will come to our distinguished colleague in theudiciary committee for his five ■-mites. >> i want to applaud you and the democratic members of the oversight committee for convening us today for this briefing. i want to thank our esteemed guest,■n t honorable senator whitehouse. the public, people owe you a debt of gratitude. before court reform became so popular, you were in the trenches doing the groundwork to bring it to this point.

the data is there. the actions, the activities have been exposed. and the legislation to address those concerns is in the pipeline. i just saw a not that ethics le. will that be the cert act or some other ethics legislation? we are having a series of speeches on the senate floor this week. but i'm not aware that a vote has been scheduled. >> well, maybe that report -- >> i think that report was about a floor action that rose to a vote. >> nonetheless i'm happy to be introducing in the house the cert act and the companion

legislation in the senate, which you are pushing, and term limit legislation which would address sua where the right has taken hold. d tends to take hold in places where there is lifetime tenure with noah penn ability structures in place. can you enlighten us senator on the■a enforcement mechanism that and how it could help when situations scalia' up the flags is exposed. >> first of all let me y it hasg with you on these issues. we have worked very well together and very closely together and i very much appreciate your advice and advocacy and friendship through all of our common work. the most important thing is that

it directs the court to establish a process for its own ethics review and if it refuses to then we provide one. it remains, to be clear, an ethics enforcement program executed within the judicial branch. this is not that kind of intrusion into the separation of powers. but at the moment, the situatiis complaint about a member of the supreme court, there is not even an inbox to take your complaint. there is no clerk on the other'' line of the inbox to sort out the legitimate complaints from the nutty stuff. the legitimate complaints have

no place to go withinthere is ny justice to have to answer any question ever about what the actual facts are. there is no ultimate report that is ever provided about what the actual facts are. and there is no opportunity for any neutral body safe the judicial conference itself or a panel of the judicial conference to take what the report declared they enforce them throughout the federal judiciarynd say this doesn't measure up. all of that can uiwithin the ju. and all of it would avoid the accountability chasm that is at the heart of the supreme court's ñuethics problems. >> without congress taking action, is it your opinion that

the chief justice does nothing that would prevent the chief justice from ordering an investigation of a complaint that may come to be filed against a justice, such as establishing a tribunalcial cono investate and marecommendations? >> i would think the chief justice would have brought administrative authority to do that. he may choose to set up the process separately and then execute through the process. he may wish to seek a majority vote to see that he has the support of the court in doing so. there is a lot of flexibility and i don't want to comment in too much depth. but he is the administrative chief of the supreme court. and he is the chair of the

judicial conference. between those two offices, he holds broad judicialsponsibilito it that the judicial government branch operates ethically and properly and with accountability and with transparency. he has those responsibility and he has the tools to achieve them, i believe. >> mr., thank you for joining us. senator whitehouse, thank you for working so hard. thank you for being an unflagging champion for the constitution and the rule of law. >> i'm grateful for the attention that you all have provided to this issue. look forward to working with you in the month ahead and perhaps even more happily in the congress ahead to put this problem behind us. >> we will bring up now our second panel. when we pick up with questions, we will start with the people

that includes mr. connaught. i see mr. goldman has joined us. please welcome to the dais alex aronson, the executive director of court accountability. he previously was the chief council to senator whitehouse on the senate judiciary committee. he is aexpert on dark money in the court system and a policy expert on judicial ethics. kate shaw is a professor of law at the university of pennsylvania. she focuses on reproductive rights and justice. she worked in the obama white house counsel's office. she cohosts the supreme court focused podcast called strict scrutiny. the director of strategic legal advocacy and earth justice. she focuses on anticipating trends in judicial doctrin scopl power and judicial agency actions. we work with the u.s. department of justice office of legal council.

welcome to all of you. ch be recognized five minutes. mr. aronson, we will begin with you. >> ranking member grassley a vice ranking member of casio cortez, tnkthis important round. the far right's capture of the supreme court poses an urgent threat to our democracy and shared prosperity. i am heartened that you are giving it the attention it deserves. my name is alex harrison, cofounder and executive director of court accountability. we founded court accountability last year to sound the alarm about the right wing court project. our goal is to stop judicial power grabs by exposing and confronting corruption and anti-democratic abuses of power. this roundtable is an important step in that direction. the supreme court's majority die about organically. the justices who took away

reproductive freedoms made it harder for historically disenfranchised communities to vote and overturned a environmental protections. came to power through a 50 year special interest campaign backed by self-interested billionaires and installed through unprecedented constitutional norm breaking. this campaign was designed to undo the social and economic progress of the 20th century. in turn fringe legal theories into constitutional law that binds us all with roots to the brown v. board of education of the project came with significant investment into the legal academy and other drivers of elite influce. the aim was to install anti-democratic modes of jurisprudence,kt most notably, originalism as the dominant forms of legal interpretation. these investments build a pipeline of ideological moveme,r benefactors and eager to be installed as life tenured federal judges. to reward that loyalty■v,

providing half million dollar yacht voyages and free trips on private jets became a no-brainer for the justices. this roundtable comes a critical moment. justice thomas' financial corruption, justice alito's brazen flag-waving displays of partisanship, the complicity of chief justice roberts and rein in maga justices have given the american people ubt about the court's impartiality. let me be very clear. it is heartbreaking that the losing confidence in their supreme court. but they are right to be doing so. these far right justices have delivered victory after victory to dark money i the expense of everyday people. somef like dobbs which overturned roe and

unleashed assaults on women's reproductive rights, or limiting the ability of states to protect people from gun violence are all obvious. dobbs is just the beginning. we can expect further attacks on reproductive freedoms based on theocratic theories like feudal personhood to ban abortion nationwide by declaring it unconstitutional under the 13th amendment. it would foreclose any legislative effort to protect reproductive freedoms. some of the court's other award for its right-wing backers are more subtle but no less harmful. thee major questions doctrine to curtail the government's ability to protect people from pollutions and other harms preyed on issues of voting lines, start money

reliably uses his power to deliver victory to its allies. although it remains the high water mark for rulings, the court of the trump insurrection case almost rises to that level. by agreeing to consider his immunity claim and delaying its ruling, the court has already ensured that trump's most serious federal trial will not occur in the laughter election. in doing so, these maga justices have arguably given trump his biggest campaign contribution to date. if patent is prologue, we should not hold our breaths for them to disclose the gift. justice clarence thomas refused to recuse himself from the trump case, even though his wife ginni thomas, was an active participant in the scheme to steal the election. stice, same bill alito, who was lying not one but two maga flags associated with a deadly insurrection has refused to himself, defying the clear dictates of federal law.

these unaccountable justices have made a mockery of justice and a lasting damage to the legitimacy of our supreme court. as americans look question bect cong branch, can do about all this. the answer is a lot. codes and gift bans start and i commend senator whitehouse and the committee for advancing legi congress has a roll. term limits would go a long way toward restoring the court. congress should alsoh& use it is constitutional power to strip or limit the federal coujurisdictin pro-democracy legislation like the freedom to vote act and right to funding bills like the codification of roe. a trump judge recently affirmed there is no question that jurisdiction stripping is constitutional and there is recent bipartisan precedent for it. >> congress should exercise its

inherent authorities to disabuse justices that it lacks. i am hopeful and inspire that you are taking the initial steps needed to start the process. >> thank you for your testimony. professor shaw, five minutes. >> ranking member raskin, thank you for the opportunity to be here today. i'm a professor of law at the university of pennsylvania cary law school. i want to focus on the relationship between supreme court and democracy. the recent substantive decisions, outside activities of some of his justices, and the response to inquiries about those tie court is conducting itself in ways that are fundamentally inconsistent aration of powers principles that are a core feature of our democracy.

it is asserting enormous power. it is exercising that power in ways that are hostile to democracy. it is refung clear, as it is every june, as the country waits with baited breath to learn whether and how the court will append huge■+ swaths of american law. this your questions include whether and how the court will further erode the capacity of agencies to regulate in ways that protect our health and well-being. whether the court will possession of the most lethal forms of firearms or the ability of dangerous people including abusers to possess them. whether the court will allow the laws passed by congress and signed by the president to be usedindividuals charged with the attack on the capitol. including the rmer president. the court is asserting that it and essentially it a all of thif us. although we don't yet know how we will rule in recent terms the court has vis-a-vis the

democratically elected actors in government whose work the court is often eager to undo, and it has done this whole signaling that the court is not subject to meaningful checks. the separation of powers is dynamic not static to affect your grade that is healthy but allowing one set of institutional actors to dramatically expand their au■qthority and resist accountability without meaningful pushback risks permanendamage to our constitutional structure. let me say a few words about the court's recent cases. the court has not only acted in ways that are inconsistent with the role of the court in a democracy, it has undermined basic precepts of democracy. the first panel covered and ranking memberabout citizens un, bush versus gore, so i went to her horse all of that. where the court was once understood as largely functioning to facilitate democracy, it's clear this is a court that no longer use that as

its primary or indeed a role that the court serves at all. it may be less obvious but equally important, anti-democratic character of the court's decision in dobbs, in overruling roe v. wade, dobbs perversely claimed to rest upon or vindicate principles of democracy. but it returned to the question of abortion the democratic process at precisely the moment when the court itself entered the system is unlikely to yield widely desired outcomes. the history andradition method the court used in dobbs is a wildly undemocratic one, binding the recognition of rights today to a past in which very few americans were meaningful participants in the productthis is on display is administered of law cases. the court has weaponized a powers and democracy to fundamentally undermine those values.

this is particularly stark in the courts major election caseso in which the court deployed this newly articulated doctrine to disable agencies from acting under broad grants of authority from congress. the court is considering whether to overrule the 40-year-old nstitutional much of agency adjudication. we don't know exactly what the court will do in those cases. but if intinues on its current trajectory, i am confident at towing to curtail agency power, and when it does that, it will be profoundly undemocraticeach of the agency i just mentioned involve challenges to agency actions that are the result of democratic choices made by miin some ways more fundamental, these ttacks on the democratic values of equality and pluralism. the cases that i thought to reduce state capacity have been most focused on agencies at the center of inclusive and

multiracial democracy, financial regulation, labor protection, reproductive rights, environmental protection. let me brief say a couple of words about accountability, a core feature of the separation powers is that no single institution possesses unchecked powers. there are lots of examples from th court that it no longer believes in that principle. it believes it enforces separation of powers but is not subject to it. last july, justice alito told the wall street journal congress did not have the power to relate the court. that is inconsistent with the text. the chief justice has used less confrontational tone but similar substance in his unwillingness to even meet with senators ■7durbin and white house in ther efforts to address questionsf ethics. it is imperative, my last point, that congress can medicaid to the court that it is serious but questions of oversight, and it cannot let the chief justice have the last word even in that small exchange.

allowing the chief justice to have the last word to my mind is ratifying the notion that the court is not obligated to participate in the project of congressional oversight. there are lots of ways the committee can follow up with a member of chief justice's staff with questions in writing butthf justice not have that refusal stand. >> professor, thank you for your excellent remarks. you are recognize for your five minutes. >> thank you, ranking member, members of the committee for the opportunity to speak about doctrinal changes the supreme court is making. i want to spend my time discussing how the effort to v-shaped the federal courts during the trump administration are bearing fruit in official decisions right for the real pee who depend on the kind of protection but the laws that i work on, the clean air act, the safe drinking water act, provide

to all of us every day. to start, to their credit i guess the conservative political actors who have the power to reshape the federal judiciary andbuse that power to do so were quite honest about what they were trying to do. 2018, don on the white house counsel spoke at the political action conference and explained that the trump administration approach to traditional nominations was part of a coherent plan in which judicial selection and the deregulatory efforts of the administration where the flip sides of the same coin. in 2022, senator mcconnell explained that the trump administration use the society as a team of potential judges who are of a like mind. now the people in position to take advantage of the reshaped courts have been clear about how emboldened they are to use the courts to advance their agenda. last november, a senior attorney

at the pacific legal foundation, a group which describes one of its core areas of work as restricting the authority of federal agencies says that for them,problem. it's more efficient to achieve their goals by litigating, including all the way up to the supreme court. that's more efficient than lobbying with administrative agencies or winning clinical campaigns. given well-funded, highly motivated litigation groups and a prime judiciary, it is no surprise that the federal decisions thate multiple lines of attacks on the wa■my our gove because it was in pursuit of what justice kagan described as a broader goal of preventing

agencies from doing important work even though that's what congress directed. this set up was how we got decisions like sakic versus epa. cour■m had appointed itself as thtional decision-maker on environmental policy. in that case, on the clean water act. what does this all mean for us the kinds of environmental laws, pressing problems.that w can we trust that our drinking water won't cause cancer? can we send our kids to walk to school and know that the air they breathe is not going to give them asthma? and on and on. congress know what the doing. congress recognized the receipt -- these were serious problems, it set clear goals for our country to meet, and entrust to federal agencies to carry out those commands.

it did so because it understood that those agencies have the necessary scientific, economic, and technological resources to make sure that congress' commands on these laws are carried out. coo gave us, the public, who has a vested interest in making sure that our water is drinkable and our air is clean, the ability to influence that process. those things are not perfect. this system has led to progress that we can and should be proud of. but in a worldjudiciary make ths without giving respect to federal agencies and the statutes that congress wrote, and perhaps even looking at them with a skeptical eye going into these cases. the world would look very different. this world is a threat to all of the progress we have made and to our ability to do the work that still needs to be done toals ant these laws have set. ■dand that so many faso hard for an that protect us from the

kinds of unchecked pollution that puts us at risk. thank you. >> thank you so much for your excellent testimony. we are now going to resume with the questioning. and i want to start off with mr. conha, yowill be recognizedutesu will be recognized for five minutes. >> thank you for convening us. mr. aronson, as you and many others have testified, justice thomas excepted numerous gifts from harlan crow, including free trips, yachts, private jets, private school. i know sometimes we think this is very complex but it's actually pretty simple. harlan crow then has a real estate firwh front of justice thomas while he's giving them these gifts. i don't think you have to go to law school to know that this is a conflict of interest. am i missing something? >> no, congressman.

you are not wrong at all. i have the federal recusal statute right here. it states that any justice shall disqualifyding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned. this statute is implicated by alito's flag-waving situation and it is certainly implicated by justice thomas' willing receipt of, you know, years and years worth of millions of dollars worth of gifts from a real estate magnate who has direct and indirect interests before his court. i think it's more than reasonable to conclude that his impartiality might be questioned, reasonably, by this decade-long relationship and by the happy■ acceptance of all this, you know, free luxury travel. >> justice alito, to your point, he has a stop the steel flag flying■4sqqfn front of his hous. i respect his first amendment rights. he says he cannot tell his spouse what to do. i cannot tell my spouse what to do. but that's not the issue. right? the issue is, should he have a

stop the steal flag in front of his house and then be presiding over a january 6o be in law school to say, you can have as about whether the election was stolen. am i missing something? >> i don't think you are missing something. justice alito has been a sinuous and trying to deflect blame, just as justice, su -- justice thomas has tried blame. a reasonable observer looking at the facts, and to your point, congressman, justice alito does not contest that the flag was flying outside his home. he does not contest the political significance of the flag. he said it was his wife's de flag. 's conclusion that no reasonable observer would be able to question his impartiality is just flatly false. >> i just want to say that the

supreme court justices have taken 344 gifts valued over $3 million. i mean, congress is pretty broken but we are limited to a gift of $250, to put it in context. total unaccountability for the supreme court. professor shah, you may nnow this, but do you know the average age that a supreme court typically leaves the supreme court? >> i don't know. >> it is 78 years of age. do you know the number of years they typically serve on the court? 28 years. longer than any point in american history. my question for you is, would you say that a court that has an average age of 63 within the average age leaving 78, that th justices serving for two or three decades may explain why out of touch with the most basic facts of modern life including abortion rights, lgbtq rights, and contraception? >> i think having younger justices on the court would be a

salutarythink it's a commissiona massively powerful supreme court and life tenure and lack of accbrew we are experiencing. i think that's one aspect of what is so broken about the supreme court right now. >> are there any requirements in the constitution the saloon appointed to the spring court for life? i know you have to be a judge for life but is there any requirement you have to be on the supreme courfo holding offis -- and life tenure is how we have interpreted that. that's how we've always understood the constitution. >> it could be somebody on the supreme court, has term limits, then goes to a circuit court,, is a circuit judge right? >> i think there's a very strong argument that our ordinary understanding of a requirement of life tenure could be implemented in a different way. it could be implemented in a way by statute without constitutional memo whereby a justice would serve her term on the supreme court and remain a

judge on a lower court without requiring an amendment to the it. >> do you think it's reasonable to have term limits for supreme court justices given their pension for fancy gifts the more years they stay and given how out of touch they are with the basic norms of modern america? >>think that in a competitive context, almost erts for the super court justices and there are good, pragmatic reasons for doing that. i think the pragmatic reasons are strong and their argument that one could do without requiring a constitutional amendment, which under article five is virtually impossible today. >> thank you, professor khaa further questions. we are limited to $50 gifts, not $250. in fact, it's a good opportunity. >> may be in the silicon valley, it's different. >> when another distinguished gentleman from california takes

no gifts at all, which is why -- we know the distinguished gentleman from california takes no good sadow, which is why. he does another congressman ocasio-cortez and i are writing legislation to apply the $50 gift been, which works fine in congress, to the spring court itself. and that this week. and which are not recognize our great colleague from florida, maxwell frost, for his five minutes of questioning. >> thank you so much to ranking member raskin and vice ranking member ocasio-cortez. the integrity of our judicial syst to focus on pretty intently in florida, especially of reason. we had a state attorney who out of office just recently. the stacked state supreme court was just completely compromised. throughout the case. we will see what happens in november with reinstating her and the will of the voters. the supreme court issued a landmark ruling in the berlin

decision which raises major concerns about the influence of dark money from wealthy right-wing donors. the broken decision, which struck down a new york's century-old lot requiring individuals to demonstrate special need to carry a major shift in the second amendment and the way we interpret it. this decision is championed by the gun lobby and big gun lobby players like the nra and some of contributors are billionaires like charles koch and leonard leo. leonard leo spent at least $950,000 to overturn affirmative action by paying the plaintiffs and outside groups who wrote supporting bruce. and dark money groups backed by leonard leo also support tens of millions of dollars in the funds dedicated to dismantling voting rights and promoting gerrymandering in the wake of shelby county ust it the votings act. the recent adoption of a formal ethics code by the supreme court lacks the robust and for cyb -- mechanism we need and the

revolution surrounding justice thomas and his undisclosed funde ansparency. there's been a lot of reporting on the influence of dark money as it relates to the court and specifically justices thomas and alito. r those who are not familiar, can you discuss a little bite td dark money networks have had on justice gorsuch and justice kavanaugh' confirmationss? >> cite chapter and verse. but there have been in recent confirmations, there's been a significant increase in money spent by outside groups, the nra and many others. i think that in some ways, the story of the transformation of the second amendment goes back much further than the recent confirmations of president trump's appointed to the supreme court and begins with the 2008ca versus heller on the 2022 bruin decision that you mentioned.

ased multiplatinum effort thained a lot of expenditures of funds and development of scholarship and sort of a movement to change americans' understanding of the second member. the amendment has a well-regulated militia being necessary to the keeping of e statthat was understood as secug a right consistent with or exercised in conjunction with militia service until the court fundamentally in the nra i thinf different platforms, involving both money but also assuaging of various sortsndd the meaning ofy provision of the constitution. the court supercharged that interpretation of the second moment. money is some but not the entirety of the story of the transformation of the second moment and of the meaning of many provisions of the constitution in the last couple of decades. >> on second amendment on, how do you expect the court's decision to impact stay and local gun

revelations like those in florida? >> it ties the hands of government, whether we are talking about the federal, state or local government, it makes it very difficult to successfully defend a firearms law against a challenge ainst the const -- under the constitution unless of regulation that looks like the regulation under review and in the case of interventions that are only needed to because firearms and firearm violence looks different today than it has looked historically, it's going to be virtually impossible to find a historical antecedent that's going to satisfy this test. it's a test that smsdevised to e invalidation of most firearms laws. we will see what the court does in the case. there's also the cardinal case, two important gun cases. could involve some running back of the maximalist logic of it makes itcult to enforce many for gun laws. >> a lot of folks are looking for, will this poor the supreme court back from the opinions

that dark money donors are championing? >> it's hard to say. i think in some ways, the juices and donors are kind of ores rowing in the same direction. 's a clean causal story of donors buying outcomes and decisions. i think certainly there's a relationship between the two. i think taking seriously the imperative of imposing accountability mechanisms on the justices will yield outcomes in jurisprudence. of curtailing funding or not. >> of course>>. thank you so much. wehould be talking about ethics as it relates to people on the court right now but alson process and how dark money influences the united states senators that will end up confirming the people that get in the courts. that's how we see a lot of that dark money also influence actually who sits on the court versus the decisions they make was they are already on it. i yelled back. >> thank you outstanding questions and answers. i would now like to recognize congresswoman busch, our

distinguished colleague from st. louis. >> thank you. thank you ranking member angus king and vice ranking member ocasio-cortez for convening this important roundtable. we are here to tell some hard truths about the myth of impartiality of supreme court justices. many of my colleagues have -- the measly ethics standards. is it appalling that justice wife showed public support for the stop the steal movement in the days after january 6 after the insurrection while the court was ruling on the 2020 election case? absolutely. and yes, the recordings of them that were released just yesterday provide a revealing glimpse at their extremism. but this scandal we not just the latest example of the extremism of the right wing injustices. the truth is the supreme court

has never been completely impartial. they were not impartial in 1857 in the dred scott be sanford case, a case arising out of my district of missouri where the supreme court decided black people cannot be considered american citizens. no surprise because the dred scott court had four people who enslaved black people on it. justices, i am calling the names, james moore wayne, peter petrone.john the u.s. supreme court went, was not impartial in 1927 when a value genesis justice oliver ash avowed eugenicist wrote the decision upholding the forced sterilization of babies or in bauer v hard trick displayed quote an almost obsessive focus on homosexual activity, unquote, according to their own.

justice, justice harry blackmun, in his dissent. this obsession led them to greenlight the criminalization of gay and lesbian relationships in that decision. i could go on and on. but in the interest of time, the sooner that we accept that the emperor has no clothes the better equipped we will be to put in meaningful safeguards to protect from people with bias. at justice alito should recuse himself from all cases related to the 2020 election. the senate judiciary committee should facts, there should be an impeachment inquiry, as is true for justice thomas and his many, many outrageous scandals. but both justice alito and thomas can spread themselves, they can spare the federal judiciary and our country from

further humiliation by resigning ribut we obviously, we cannot count on these men to do the right thing. this is a -- this is why i, along with my codes, have introduced the judiciary act. bringing the bench from nine to 13 justices. this is one of the many crucial reforms into to dilute and controlled almost limitless power these corrupt justices yield. we know that the■ ce court, it s all. and in the next month, including its blatantly pro-insurrection wing will rule on access to medication, abortion,ple and trs claims of immunity against prostheir lack of neutrality has been so in refuted we documented -- irrefutably documented that if congress wants to restore confidence in the judiciary, it must --

professor shaw, i would lack to ask you -- like to ask you about the decisions that these far right, corrupt justices are handing down. what does this mean for real people like in st. louis? can you talk abouthe real harm that are caused on our communities by these scotus decisions? >> i mentioned in my opening some of the impact, the regulations that have be some of the latest administrative cases. i will say a couple of words on the abortion cases on the court's docket right up. the court is challenge brought n texas to mefford prestone, one of the two drugs used in the medication abortion protocol with the most claims, a legal right to be in court challenging the fda's approval and regulatory decisions. and get, a district judge in texas sided with them on both their ability to be in crttheirn bill dooley of the fda's approval. the fifth circuit ruled that back to a degree but did agree that some of what the fda had

done, loosening restrictions on access, was unlawful. the case never voice. the supreme court is currently deciding what it's going to do with that case. take most likely, the standing analysis is too much for the supreme court to even accept so thatgrants. mephrestone will remain available. that another -- there's another that case could well be 4 -- be before the supreme court in a year or two. we are talking about access to needed, widely used medication that's the most common method of ending a pregnancy across the country on the court has the ability to render that essentially unavailable to all americans potentially in this decision but sternly in a decision within the next year or two. that's one example of the kind the kind of stakes we are talking about. >> thank you so much>>, professor sure. professor sure. . >> i recognize>> the

distinguished gentleman from new york for his five minutes. >> [indiscernible] most recent issue related to justice alito. as you probably know, congressman johnson who was here earlier, and i lead a letter along with colleagues to justice alito bring out the obvious and clear conflict of interest he had under any code of ethics, and as well as the constitution and federal law. at the same time, s durbin also wrote to meet with chief justice roberts in response, justice alito santa a letr back to all of us. will agree.uite mr. aronson, you discussed it a

little bit. the first thing i would point out is, um, there is no mention of any of the court'sedent on this issue. there the fundamental notion that no one can be the judge and jury in his own case. which has been applied to judges' decisions on recusal, right? there is nothing in his explanation that addresses those issues, correct? >> there is not. >> you're talking about the federal recusal statute, which applies to any justice, judge or magistrate judge. is there any way to interpret thats exclude supreme court justices? >> no, congressman, a very specifically applies to supreme court justices. >>ustifying why

he's not recusing, justice alito cites to the supreme court's, and i intentionally used air quotes, ethical code of conduct, which is nonbinding and nonenforceable, and uses the standard in the supreme court's code of■ conduct, which says tht it justice should disqualify himself or herself in ajustice't reasonably be questioned. and then in the code of conduct, there an example of that. tical language, is it not, to subsection a of section 455, right? >> correct. >> i agree with you wholeheartedly, it is a basta

rdization of an analysis of whether or not anybody could reasonably question his impartiality. i want to go to subsection b of the federal statute, which he does not address. and in this subsection b, it states that he shall also disqualify himself in the following circumstances. subsection one, where he has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party. now, let's give him the benefit of the doubt and blame everything on his wife, because that's very convenient. i suppose you could make an argumentha he has not exhibited a personal bias by his wife hanging a clearly political flag on his house. but there are also revelations where they are not in a recording where he views his raw and the that his role in the

political -- his role and the political landscape right now as and he very clearly puts himself on one side. ishat what your understanding of that recording and the reporting in the rolling stone is? >> i think that's a fair interpretation of that recording. i think given the kind of vague, you■g know, context of that recording, i would not hang my hat necessarily on recusal of b1 as strongly as the first provision mention. what i think there is certainly an argument that he should o"recuse based on personal bias, particularly given what we know alito's, you know, long-standing partisan affiliations and, you know, allegiance to theut agenda. >> and to be clear, an effort to overturn an election. a very particular political event.

so, he would not have to recuse in every case if he had some political bias. in my last couple seconds, i want to point to another section here address, nor do i think he could explain. which is subsection b5, which refers to either the judge or his spouse is known by the judge to have an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding. based on what we know, even assuming it is all ms. alito, am i correct that it is pretty clear that mrs. minimum,n interest in the outcome of the two january 6 cases? >> i'm glad you brought up that provision because i think it is directly relevant to questions of recusal in the trump insurrection case. i think the question depends a bi■xz6t on the legal precedent r

whether that would constitute an interest in the outcome of the proceedings. but that provision very clearly applies to the spouse of justice thomas, who we know was material witness in the january 6 committee and who was directly involved in trump's stop the steal movement. a very clearly requires justice thomas' disqualific so than it e justice alito's. >> great. thank you. i think as i turn this back over and my over long time, the fact that justice alito thinks that he can just submit an explanation, self-serving explanation without any independent investigation, without any independent accountability, without any vetting of the■ñ facts, especiay as we have now seen that one of the fact witnesses has disputed his account, is part of the

reason why i introduced the supreme court ethics and investigations elastic, which would create an independent office of independent counsel which is so, so sorely need. i think the ranking member for your indulgee. you bet. thank you for your leadership and passion on this. i am got to return to our distinguished, beloved colleague for massachusettsu, ms. presley, for five minutes. >> i must thank ranking member raskin and■ vice ranking member ocasio-cortez. very apt description, i think, given the secrecy and corruption of far right justices that has been happening in the shadows. but i am a firm believer that sunlight is the best disinfectant and we need transparency. while reblicans have ignored the crisis, today's hearing is critical for lead in the apparel can test the american public know how extremist on the right are)= organizing across branches of government to enact wholesale, widespread policy violence. have you heard a project 20 35?

>> congresswoman, yes, i■ >> yes, i have. >> a far right manifesto that has hundreds of pages of extremes policies to destroy the federal government as we know it. everything from a national abortion ban to eliminating the department of education to mass. >> mu of this focus has been on agencies and the federal bran bt also implicates the judiciary. if the supreme court will back them. that's where people like dark money racketeer leonard leo epien.iciary committee recently subpoenaed leonard leo as part of the supreme court ethics investigation. can you explain briefly why leonard leo is under investigation? >> i believe mr. leo is under

investigation for his cenly in n of decades worth of right wing judicial nominees, which is not the direct target of inquiry, but for his involvement in the scheme to reward these jues and justices with luxury travel, vacation, private jet trips, half $1 million yacht voyages to indonesia and the like. investigative reporting has placed leo at the center of this billionaire justice matchmaking scheme. >> that's right. leo is the tissue between many of the ethics scandals on the supreme cour ton he helped clarence confirmation and the discrediting and smearing of anita hill. let the record reflect that i still believe you, professor help. leo's work to undermine democracy goes beyond the supreme court. he has used his dark money network fund project 2025 to

the tune of almost $50 million. the on the way the heritage foundation is able to promote their antidemocratic agenda ■is through funders like him. leonard leo is reported to be behind lawsuits for the spring court to end chevron deference. can explain why that matters when it comes to harmful policies from a covative administration? >> yes, congresswoman. i am so glad you brought up project 2025 and its intersection with the court. it is no coincidence that the very same collection of dark money entities, over 100 groups that have sponsored project 2025 and its sweeping plans to repeal the 20th century there installing installation of,, you know personnel and reorientation of our policies are the same ones that have been behind the decades on court capture scheme. the agendas are connected in very direct ways my co-panelists have sort of touched on in terms of the attacks on the administrative of plans to

install a almost monarchicaliveh drawing on a vision called unitary executive they.d to supt president bush's despicable torture program. >> project 2025 will only be sues and enforceable code of ethics. we need investigations into justices samuel -- samuel alito, clarence thomas, brett kavaug others with a record of impropriety on the highest court of a nation. we desperately need court reform. i would just love for people to make it make sense for me that justice alito cannot tell his wife or to do but he can tell me what to do with my body. make it make sense. thank you. >>■i thank you for your powerful questioning and testimon.

coming to the distinguished gentlelady from michigan for her five minutes. >> thank you so much. thank you so much to ranking member raskin and our amazing vice chair, ocasio-cortez. this is so incredibly important because i get asked about this . they call it the ethics crisis here in washington, d c. but do you know what they call it in detroit? may be any of you can guess? i don't know, ranking member raskin or vice chair ocasio-cortez, what do you think detroit calls it? do you think they call it a correction crisis? >> they probably call it a correction crisis. >>nh that's right. that's exactly what they call an. >> we both talk to people. they don't even call or justin -- justice clarence thomas justice clarence, they call him corruption clarence. they are fed up.

when you look at the definition of corruption, i don't know if y'all looked it up, but it's like let me look at the difference between the definition. you got■'ishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery. so, i would love for you guys to all, so we already know some of these. ■right? so, 20 years, no reporting at all by collection, i'm goingo call it corruption clarence, 20 years.all of a sudden, we find 6 private jet flights, six helicopter flights, and multiple yacht trips from republican rs like crow and others. and then you get to justice alito, what, some alaskan fishing trip? how is that not corruption? this is not an ethics crisis. the american people knows what

it is. its corruption. its bribery. that's why they are yelling impeach them, remove them. any other person on any other job when it comes to any of my residents would be gone in an instant. and so, you know, for me, i think we should begin to call it what it is, out of respect to the many people that are impacted by t -- directly impacted by this. you, girl. director, i have to tell you, i come from a community where we had a right to breathe campaign where i thought smelling like so far -- sulfur dioxide, all that smell was normal. when i think of all the work where you have to do to address the climate crisis but really to address the fact that right now even under current processes, my residents called permission to pollute. we have oversight. is it really stopping them from getting sick? where we haven't residents that are putting white crosses in

front of their homes because they, you know, the white cross campaign, if you have survived cancer or died of cancer, you are told, put the white cross so people can visualize that our whole, neighborhood had been under literally paying the 12 investing so much in fossil fuels. this is a predominately black and brown community. i want to hear from you and i think it's important. i know my resides feel. what does it mean? if you look at the civil rights act, it got watered down by the courts, it got weaker because of the courts. we cannot even have disparate impact because there's a threshold. why is the chevron deference important to the average american? >> i think at the most basic level, thisjoctrine, i would just laid out very quickly, it's statutes and tells agencies to carry them out. and imprison in that is the idea

that the agencies are supposed to take first crack at addressing any questions that come up. just to give you an example of the types of questions that come and the statutes that i work on and that you are referencing in the clean water a drinking ws act, these statutes refer to thingspracticable technology ave to control pollution? that is not necessarily have an answer you can find from looking in a dictionary. congress told agencies to figure it out, to apply their expertise, apply their technical knowledge and to listen to input from the public. all the chevron deference from excess is when an agency does that right, follow the process, applies its best judgment and it reaches a reasonable conclusion, courts, which are not in a position to do any of those things, should der to the agency interpretation. that means when groups like your constituents go to an agency with some progress before the agency that has a direct impact on their health, into sticky o

with the doctrine of the chevron deference. it's more likely to be a victory that lasts and it's subject to the details by some judge somewhere in the country. it really does make a difference for all of us. we >> have a correction crisis >> on literally an entity that could really impact our residents. i go into some of my schools and there is literally garbage bags over their drinking fountains. garbage bags over their drinking fountains. shirley chisholm, the first african-american woman to serve in congress, used to say children cannot learn if they are hundred. children cannot learn if we are posing them. it's the water and so much more -- if they are hungry. children cannot learn if we are poisoning more. now we are going to go ahead and allow this unchecked, unfettered group of folks that have been i think in many ways corrupted for quite a while making these decisions that impact our residents. thank you again for this hearing. i think it is so important. thank you. >> chair now recognizes the

gentlelady from pennsylvania. >> thank you. ranking member and of course gratitude to you and tant discussion that republican colleagues. ■[as someone who spent a little bit of time in law school and since then in getting a littletr particular and specific our conversations will be, i'm going to try to have a layman's conversation. because demystifying the court is actually one of the most important things that we need to do right now. as we are looking towards project 2025 or all of these other issues, capture of the court, we need folks to really understand that this is not as complicated as they might think it is. in september 2020, chief justice roberts said he does not understand a question about super court's legitimacy. since then, we have seen document cases of joseph is -- justice is being wined and dined by billionaires. they are failing to recuse

themselves in cases where their wives are embroiled. they are displaying insurrectionist flags, as we heard, outside their houses all with zero consequences. whether we like it or not, the supreme court is absutely in a legitimate crisis. you can code a correction crisis, ethics crisis, a legiti that does not just mean approval -- that's the approval o■0f e job itself they are doing. the court tried to placate us by adting a court of ethics. if a justice violates one of their adopted ethics rules, who investigates that violation? ethics code that provides for any investigation of the justices. they leave it up to themselves to self police. >> what are the consequences then of a violation and who would enforce those court has made clear that theye

don't think that they can be held accountable, either by congress, or by the judicial conference, which does regular and disciplined the conduct of lower courts no one to hold them accountable. >> we officiallye function, it just serves as a way to keep people -- to get people to stop complaining. we have to take continuing education classes in ethics and we can b■ disbarred, suspended. there are many mechanisms to hold us accountable. when a lawyer violates in ethics will, who investigates that? >> every state has its own bar disciplinary authorities so there is a different process in every state on the process gets invoked if there an ethical violation. >> what about when a state court judge violat their ethics code? > the mechanism varies state to state but there are state disciplinary bodies that do have significant more.

investigative and enforcement authority. there have been a couple of episodes involving arguably abuses of those disciplinary proceedings targeting justices from popular statements that unpopular statements or rulings. that can be abused -- unpopular statements or rulings. that can be abused. it exists and it's a meaningful mechanism. >> how about when a member of congress is accused of an ethics relation? >> i think the chair would. >> vice ranking member raskin might know the answer to that. we do have an ethics committee. so the rest of the legal community and members of coress are subject to actual ethics standards and enforcement. no matter how effective they are, they do exist, and get our supreme court, the supreme court tenure, has decide they don't need that level of scrutiny. we don't need to go into how a bad actors weeks late the system -- would exploit the system, we are singing right now. can you tells how charles koch and leonard leo have helped to

fuel litigation and court ruling that have limited our abilitye? >> i'm not an expert on the financing side of things. when i can say is that in many of our cases we see multiple groups raising the same kinds of legal arguments and it's just impossible to look at the briefing objectively and to say degree of coordination and a significant amount of resources going into coming up with the arguments like the major questions doctrine, like setting the stage for overruling chevron change and other pressing environmental impacts. >>. thank you we have en reports knowing that coke has featured clarence thomas in at least one inclusive meeting with his closest donor allies along with leo elio has aóqrranged luxury travel for clarence thomas and alito to meet with billionaires. we are about to go and vote. mr. erickson -- mr.pí erickson,-

>> as congressman raskin has proposed that the justice department do to disqualify them. ultimately, it would still be to the justice themselves whether to recuse themselves from the case. if i could amend my last answer just ait. there is a process by which the judicial conference can review willful failure to disclose, your know, financial disclosures and refer those questions to the attorney general. the attorney general to several to play. >> thank you -- the attorney general does have a role to play. >>. . thank you we should not be living in this alternate reality that believes our supreme court is free of corrupting influences at this moment were climate, reproductive justice, voting rights, protections for trans and queer symptoms guardrt racial discrimination are all under threat. this court is being wined and dined by the very same people

that profit from this pain. we must ll it out for what it is and seriously address this corruption that exist in our legal system. thank you again for being with us and thank you again for convening us. >> thank you for such an excellent set of observations and questions. panelists, you guys have done a fantastic job and you can see why i am so proud of the oversight committee. they are called the troop squad -- truth squad ever since they debunked and demolished the ridiculous impeachment drive against president biden. today, we are e truth and justice squad. let me just follow up one questi a will see if ms. ocasio-cortez has any final thoughts. i want to follow up on something that was prompted by miss lee's question. we have had a lot of in american hisp6tory at every lev, the state level, the federal level, the trial level, the appellate level, who have done things wrong. we have had judges who have taken bribes and been impeached.

we've had judges who have sexually harassed clerks. d judges who have engaged in party activity. we have had judges who have owned human beings as enslaved people. sell, there is magic about being a judge or a justice. do anyis some reason that we s't have an ethics code that binds judicial officers the way we have binding ethics codes on legislative officers>l or executive officers? is there any reason? yes? >> i think there is reason to have higher standards for justices who are supposed to be impartial and to hold themselves above reproach. as we've learned from this past year's devastating scandals and are very clearly not living up to that higher standard that they should be living up to. >> yes. professor shah, do you have any final thoughts? >> i think the rules of the road

have basically been trust us. i tling to make that bargain when tbe themselves in a noble and honorable fashion consistent with the rule of law. i think there's every reason to believe that maybe that was never the case, it certainly is not the case now and certainly there's a more pressing need for some more formal mechanism. >> it's certainly not the right time when we have such unequal justice come out of the court in such sharp wealth inequality in society where people lead to different kinds of legs. we made one poster, if somebody would put it up. wi amount of money spent on a family vacation and do not -- what's the average amount of money spent on a family vacation in the united states? i think it was around $3000 if you go to disney world for a long weekend with your family. is that right? $2840 is how much is spent on average american family's

vacation. one of justice thomas' 38 sugar daddy sponsored vacations was more than $500,000. and i'm sorry, but if you are making $300,000 a year from the taxpayers, pay for your own damn vacation. what about you? any final thoughts? >> oh, put it any better than professor shaw did. >> did you have any concluding thoughts? >> one of the major takeaways and what is important about so much of what we've discussed today is that the supreme court is a stones throw away from this building. they are nine justices that wear robes but they are not gods nor are they priests >> and this idea that there -- priests. idea that their authority is self generated and they are accountable to no one or nothing, is not just drug, it

is one of the most direct and dire threats to american democracy today. because any dairy -- a degree of authority without accountability is a seed of tyranny and it is a seed of authoritarianism. and resting that play out today bodily are tana me of women and people across the country, in the stripping of labor rights and labor movements from people across the country, in people's right to drink clean water and breathe clean air. the constitutional and democratic crisis and threat that this current corruption crisis on the court present is a threat not just to american way of life and american democracy but it is a threat to our lives. people have died and are dying after the dobbs decision. people have died and can die with the rollback of environmental provisions.

we have seen this in the dumping of pfa's an toxic waste throughout the united states. these are our lives on the line. and the couption crisiis not just an offense to our democracy, it is nott morals, s about people's lives on the line. and who are being sacrificed for greed and for what? and so i think the take away for us today is that the responsibility of this harm is not just solely on the court. it relies in congress. it lies in congress. because it is not just when an individual seeks to abuse their power where our democracy fails, it is a when there is a lack of accountability and standing up and response to an attempt at turning that our democracy fails -- at tyranny that our democracy

while we had accountable he january 6 and an attempted insurrection and involvement to overturn the results of the and it's why we need to have truly important, sweeping, and roesponse to the crisis of corruption on the highest court of this land. and with that, i yield back to the ranking member. >> thank you for that, ocasio-cortez. the senate gets to render advice and consent on supreme court nominations. we don't have that constitutional power. we have the power to impeach, for example. but we nonetheless have a very powerful institutional interest in integrity on the supreme court. and we are going to exercise our power and we rciser responsibility to help oversee integrity in the judiciary. i want to my colleagues

for doing such an outstanding job today on this. all of us who aspire and attain to public office, whether it's the legislative branch, the executive branch, or the judicial branch are nogóthing bt the service of the people. whether your title is president or congresswoman or senator, we are all servants of the people. none of us is above the law and none of us is above the ■gconstitution. and all of us must remember that we are ultimately serving the people of the united states. i want to thank our distinguished■ for your terrific presentation. we want to thank our colleague, senator whitehouse, for coming over and talking about the work that has been such a labor of love for him for many years now. and i'm glad that some new people have been tuning in from around the country to this very important dialogue. and we are picking up some traction we are going to be able to make a lot of changes in the weeks and months and years

. and with that, this session is adjourned. [gavel smash] [indiscernible chatter]

[indiscernible chatter]

>> so we are right up against the lawlessness in this court. >> can you talk about the senate judiciary committee? there's been some criticism that they are not moving aggressively enough to rein in the court. >> there is news coverage on how they are bringing the ethics coverage. the problem on the senate side [

indiscernible] [indiscernible chatter] >> the actions that they know are going toail?you are talkingg the ethics bill, white house ethics bill, which we know there will be objections from house republicans. how important are of put the ste ground versus? >> i think it is extremely importani, mean the public willt understand any representative or senator who is blockading ethics reform on the supreme court. i would not want to be that republican senator who decides to sabotage it. >> do you think -- justices should be on the table? >> i think we should use all8 te tools available to us, any tools

available to us but we have to always follow where the investigations go and make sure we weigh. >> the republicans tod want to hold in contempt of the attorney general of the united states for not 100% compliant with a subpoena they sent him. i think he has complied with the subpoena, at least 99%. as i was saying at the endere, c servants whose roles are defined by the constitution, so none of us is beyond the constitut and it is scary that there are people in the republican party entering a close constitutional america. they are acting as if those of us in government or power are unbounded law, and that's just intolerable. >> given the roadblocks you are facing from the republicans, what do you think of the most basic, practical steps that

should be taken on the supreme court and the ethics issues? >> that's why aoc and i are planning to introduce a very sile bill which would apply the $50 gift ban that all of us r court. it works very simply. none of us taken give settle. we don't take a -- subprime court. none of us takes any gifts at all. the idea that there is any ambiguity about that on the supreme court as outrageous. >> thanks for coming. thanks for hanging in. >> on wednesday, republican and democratic lawmakers faced off in the annual congressional baseball game at nationals park in washington, d.c.. the event dates back to 1909 and is how the teacher to raise money for local d.c. charities. wiav at 7:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now, arfree mobile

video app, and online at c-span.org. ♪ >> friday night, watch c-span's 2024 campaign trail, a weekly roundup of c-span's campaign coverage providing a one-stop shop to discover what the candidates across the country are saying to voters, along with first-hand accounts from political reporters, updated poor numbers, fundraising data, and campaign ads. watch c-span's 20 ctrail friday. eastern on online at c-span.org, or download as a podcast on c-span now, our free mobile app, or wherever you get a podcasts. c-span,>> coast guard commandant admiral linda fagan testified on the coast guard