code with your smart phone income every cspan shop purchase help support cspan's nonprofit operation. >> sees manager unfiltered view of government, funded by these television companies and more including comcast. >> community centers, come guess is partnering with a thousand community center sue cartier wi-fi enabled with students with low income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything and comcast support cspan as a public service along with these other television providers giving you a front row seat do democracy. >> joining us now, executive director and thank you for giving you a hundred extra time. >> yes, i think you o for having me on. >> tell us a little bit about your organization and how your

financial backed also if you what. >> sure, the support is a - 93 nonprofit that advocates for regular accountability and transparency in all the federal courts and primarily that supreme court in we are funded by average americans who have given us funds do think that you know doing a good job. >> you take a certain point of view when he comes to issues of the supreme court, partisan gate undertake. >> nono were nonpartisan and we have always been nonpartisan, going on seven half years that we have been around and we do not believe that ethics or transparency in the government a partisan mention certain parties and certain it to visuals from parties may think one way or another but wes work with republicans and democrats and conservatives and liberals every day to try to make or break the spring court and the other federal courts and streaming into the 21st century. >> and i was suspect with your title, was a part of the need to be fixed would you say.

>> oh man, do you have more than 30 minutes, well i think that will look we have one median broadcast, we think also embarked earrings to be live streamed,, we want life tenure n supreme court we think it should have ave quota in a code of conduct and all the justices anpublic appearances or be live streamed as well me think of financial disclosures that they have to fill out every year should be posted online and we think that they should be more forthcoming about what stops socks lyons. >> i suppose that several of those points as you described, or following it the released of the stories that have been coming up that with justice thomas e-mailed by or text by his wife. >> yes, it's been a busy few weeks and we hope that it spurs according congress into action. >> and some with us specific sorry, what is your organization organization take what's transpired over the past few weeks as is transpired.

>> is unique story number industry, generally six, that is unique to begin with with the fact that a supreme court justice his wife was involved in planning efforts of our democracy and is concerning giving how close jenny clarence r and very likely that jenny was referring to clarence and whatever text messages which he talks about her best friend is clarence and that's how they talked about each other andnd affected the purple strategy her and mark meadows and a lot of other of the election - we are trying to reach the supreme court like their goal is to get to thege supreme court and so tt also is the integrity of justice thomas for the hearing election cases and many are reached the supreme court, the texas rotted one in pennsylvania then obviously the case about januars thomas was the loan vote against allowing congress to subpoena

former president trump documents related to that investigation by the congressional committee and so there are a lot of touch points if you will wear the work of jenny and clarence intersected and we want to separate that is much as possible and restore the integrity of the courts. >> and so i suppose critics would say that the diagram to of the illustration straight lines between the textt and clarence thomas incision and what you say does exist or yet a look at those things as you look at them and as far as curiosity releases decision but unnecessarily something that ties into together. >> wilshire the federal law, federal lawfe says, all justice, shall disqualify themselves in any case in which the impartiality might reasonably be thquestioned and maybe some of e

viewers out there don't think i'm being reasonable but i think that if you talk to the legal ethics powers and you read those pages, a man getting text messages for my friends and ever hear from about it, what is going on supreme court and i rethink it a reasonable person believes that there is some sort of ethical issue we are sing in the fact that i am talking to you now clearly is a reasonable things that there's an ethical issue with clarence thomas due to these jenny thomas texan i think that we should emphasize were generally six related cases, at the supreme court, all 2020, election cases in fact that there are still percolating, it's crazy but that is the case and i think that this of record should proactively say, these are going to be our ethic guide rails is where the with only court in america have it does not have a binding code of ethics and so let's take the leap and join everyone else and say that this is what i think out is and what

it should be going to follow it to restore public faith in our institution. >> our guest with us until 930 few want to ask questions 202-73-8001 for republicans and democrats are two of 02748 - 8000 intuit 27,488,002 and 8003 at one of the people that were asked about these kind of things relating to thegs last question that i asked you, was center josh holly on the senate corner doors asked about the relationship between clarence thomas and his wife jenny in effect the play a little bit of his response and then will get you to respond to t it. >> with the location justices signing off. >> it could be, she was textings mark meadows over the election. >> i get that by she's an independent adult woman and this is strange to me all of these

calls for her husband to do what like minding her veteran me like frankly i think it is kind of will jenny thomas, like you better go get her under control mean you're responsible for what she says. >> she's an independent person yours know, she's her own political and she's been doing this for a long time she's on the bench and i don't know, to me it seems like - >> center holly take what he thinks. >> it doesn't holdu water, this is a strategy that jenny thomas was a w part of the money to somehow, this record itself, overturning the election results and so cannot see how the integrity of this justice would be in there, i'm going to tell you, i think that there is an unfortunate part of the makeup of some of these the bill call

the supreme court ethic and is all democrats and republicans to support it yet which would imposect us code of conduct on e supreme court in nevermind four years ago, that pretty recently after justice ginsburg made her comment calling trump a thinker and a liar, biter start and bipartisan agreement to code of conduct on the supreme courton d so just like with so many things in washington these issues is very difficult for a lot of folks including the senator to take out or seven away from returning to the partisan corners, clarence thomas is under attack and is gotta be some plot and respectfully, this is not some plot and it is not obviously jenny has been doingis this a long time that what he said and when you are working in

circles that will lead directly to your husband sport, the refusal law is fairly clear that if your wife has an interest, that may become before your spouse is an interest to come before you as a federal judge, it is yourr duty to not participate in that issue are in that case i think that is really where i lay in and hopefully more republicans land as well. >> earlier this year you have te chief justice for development, code of ethics for the supreme court, what came of that in what you envision that to look like. >> so two things, i was sitting behind justice kagan when she told the house committee that the chief justice was working on a code of conduct and followed the folks of followed up with the supreme court sources and it seems like there's not been any work done on it since 2019 which is added that i worked with some legal ethics scholars come about

two dozen of them that before the text message stories came out, back on february 3rd, they sent a letter to the chief justice thing that we needed a binding code of conduct and believe the justice to write it on themselves and now were going to a point where congress is taking a serious look at this there's going to be hearing to the house and hearings in the senate and the members have also written a letter to the supreme court and somehow in 2022, we still believet' that about house and senate democrats won a letter to the chief justice asking for binding code of ethics, and so things are moving and ith think that the focus on the hill right now is release from the majority side is to get thege judge jackson confirmed ad then come back from easter recess and have some these hearings these issues are not going way we know that things will come out as a january 6

committee has more documents i would expect a constant drumbeat and maybebe bedford jenny thomas in the coming weeks. >> joining with us this discussion very sources often cleveland ohio democrats find. >> hi and thank you for taking my call and i hope gabe will continue to do what he's doing supreme court and maybe come on down. to our government and get them straightened out, because all of them are a mess as far as i'm concerned a. >> is that your comments or do you have a question for guess. >> will you know, yes, husband-and-wife no, i mean, the things that they are doing, is ridiculous, he really is news going to defend whether or not they can get to january 6 thing, no. because he knows his wife was

involved, come on. >> okay that's marion ohio. >> and again, this is an unprecedented a case and we even justice ginsburg husband was involved in the laws and jane roberts involved in the law and chief justice roberts wife and eight were political and we knew marty ginsberg politics we know if jane roberts politics with they were never involved to the season, to give an example senator. run off ohio, wife accomplished journalist and was in a gallery and went to chief justice roberts wife during the trump impeachments that chief justice roberts presided over ingesting, how do you think things are going andhi what a jane rubber y back, cannot talk about it so there is a way to be ethical and marty ginsberg gave up his practice when justice ginsburg became the justice and i think

that there are ways to be above suspicion and thomases are not doing that. >> we have a viewer tony, this question of unity said it would enforce the sanctions on violations of the so-called code of ethics and enforcement what if i that the court is the board and it. >> so that is a great question and that is really for 54 million-dollar question is how would you enforce it and so into answers and one is, there's always the option of impeachment and removal coming i don't think that we've met that far her really anywhere close to that far in this case but there is always an enforcement mechanism that the congress house in order to keep it justices and judges in line aboutha a dozen federal judges impeach in american history and only one supreme court justice and he was removed and that's about 200 years ago with that is always an option, maybe not in this case but potential future cases things

can always get worse. nothing think i s would say is i think there's value in having a cody, just so whether the court of public opinion or peer pressure is saying chief justice roberts or breyer whoever is saying look, were supposed to uphold this cone and abide by its searches and rendering it and impugning the integrity of the court at and it's at the lowest popular approval ever and i really behooves the justices to take proactive steps to improve that trust and the binding code of conductbe it wod be just one step in my released a ten-point plan saying how we could fix this scandal at a code of conduct was only one of them, refusal standards andus we wanto be easier to file a motion and we want the judicial conference to explain the political activity and judges and justices cannot participate in and so there's a lot that can be done

as a code of conduct is easy shorthand to say there are a lot of ethical shortcomings and we definitely need that so i think it is really someone in order for more real overhaul of how we look at the ethics and transparency of her highs were. >> and we did a survey this year the supreme court on c-span in one of the questions that we asked about it is the code of ethics for the court as needed and 72 percent of those responding saying yes and 50 percent no and 14 percent not sure. >> yeah, consistent with what our organization is called often times using the same and we've got in usually the 70 - 85 percent range and is is across-the-board, the same number of la centerpoint, we been tracking this foran even reform it was called the coalition for transparency in 2013 the democrats independence and republican say the same thing, so democratic is

80 percent 20 percent of the republicans, is consistent acrossss the board and parts annoying. i think that's really important to say that maybe in washington, they're not on board but in general, when you explain the folks out the supreme court is the only court in c the country that does not have a binding code of ethics, that is really not really touch any of the partisan touch points that doesn't washington. >> there's a lot more to the survey if you want to check out our website, we have a section there if you want to read the responses and let's hear from john from washington estate republican line in high. >> and i are you this morning and is everything okay. >> and i was wondering, tom and you don't do anything that doesn't amount to anything.

>> thank you for your assessment of my work and you know i think there is value to having nonpartisan watchdogs in any form of government and the president when the president issues or says things which he can say he has his rights to free speech and lots of folks when the members of congress go out and say certain things and they havee a right to respondent is also part of very and for their free free speech and i think that have a track record having challenged and when justice so just critical as when - first class too hard and reported on her financial disclosures has i am to justice khalil when he flies in a private plane to hunt and reported on his disclosures and so i think there are naturally organizations and we are a lien small organization is so like were taking any money or

anything and i think there are plenty of like-minded folks from reallyntry who don't want to be sure that we have the highest court in the land that by the way, 20 years ago, this was not having such an impact on our lives just the last 20 years, we've had supreme court decide to presidential elections in ulcers of decisions of life or death in every voting law and abortion law healthcare law any major thing that's happened in the united states the final word within the supreme court, used to be that the supreme court would maybe say part of the lower part of the law unconstitutional and then congress would go back and rewrite them fog congresses the present would redo the executive order for the executive branch and congress are so gridlocked and so dysfunctional the supreme court has in the nature for the vacuum and in washington for the power vacuum so is going to be with the power and if that is the case, i think that you want watchdogs ensuring the nine

justices are making those life-and-death decisions that are above the board ethically that's what we see her jobs to be. >> you talk about the recusal standard and you talk about that and what is the standard what is changed about itst is. >> and torso right now it said that anytime a justices partiality will have to step aside and say or have a financial stake in the case and if there or if they know facts of the case or they worked on the case in a previous job, they have to refuse and i don't think that it's good enough and i think that is the federal judiciary and judges set to serve for life are sort of taking advantage a lot of times of that position and will relax the standards and being flown in the country by political donors that are getting lavish gifts and are able to do all of that and sometimes they reported on

their annual disclosures and sometimes they do not because of the personal hospitality sections of understanding time that you know she's a recent example, jackson is a member of the harvard board of overseers that is a harvard, assuming she will become just as jackson, she will be on the court when a harvard case reaches the supreme court it she's already said she would refuse because of her time of the board of overseers but to me is less about that fact than the fact that over the course of the last decade, that judge jackson has been flown to boston and put up and give a nice meal spikes harvard university is something like 40 or 50 times. so similarly, justice khalil of the trip in which he passed away in texas, and he was thrown out thereby this guy johnny previously had a case c before e summer record i don't know d if that was the only time he had been flownad out to john's huntg

ranch but i think there should be a little bit about pulling off that ifri you getting free flightsfl by whoever and they fd themselves before the supreme court, the need to be a little bit of a break between when you're allowed to hear the case similare to how well he wasn't perfect when he does this but someone had to have judge justice marshall, refused from ncaa naacp cases talking about basketball had - these cases, for the first 15 years is on the court because he's to work out the naacp so that has been disproven and there's been a few cases over the years they actually did serve on but generally these was recused for most of those cases some sort of standard says okay, you've given me this benefit hand raised to work for you and other be a cooling off very kindd of like how there is supposed to be for congress christmas the lobby and

the law said that there is a year cooling off. i would like to see this instruction to this "and times they say they could recuse. >> let's go to north carolina in a minute line, good morning. >> hey there and yes you started off withs, a your nonpartisan bt then you turn around and januarp attempt and i would like to know what cases should our bg should refuse to step away from and what cases should another justice have recused herself from. >> sure so if a very lucrative publishing contract with what they were so many times i think it is now paying one random house and i think at the time he was the supreme court just

called random house and that is where her bucket contract was there was a position brought againstt random house and 2012 r 2013 she did not refuse from that case enemy was clear that justicee. ginsburg had - towards president trump so i think that there's an argument to be made in any case in which president trump was a name to litigants, and a party, that justice ginsburg should have recused herself because of some ofca the cases are official capacity cases like as president versus as trump personally, you'd have to double check to see which specific case because when you're the present, pursue lot obviously neurotic cases that a reaches the spring for when you are biden versus this or whatever but yeah you know, so republican or democrat or conservative liberals they calls january 6 attempt, someone won

the election of president biden in a forcefully some people are not over that. >> so when he comes with e-mails getting thomas, they've apparently filed an information act. >> yes and we want to see who else she was e-mailing me do this for a d lot of different instances and so for example the justice give a speech of the university of rhode island which is a public university she and reported her travel and her financial disclosure reported recent freedom of information request of the state of rhode island saying that did you all pay for her trip and until it turned out they did and so you need to put it on your financial disclosure report and so she's working on fixing at ten similarly for all the supreme court nobody's come up republican and democratic predict have the information reports from kavanaugh and others and barren it just became

on the obama shortlist and freedom information request from him but for judy thomas yes, only likely that she sent messages to the white house but is possible that she sent time to messages and e-mails to doj officials we know the department of justice officials jeff clark is the guys name and specifically, who's also been involved in attempt toto overtun the election so when see how deep that conspiracy rent and potentially mention it her husband on that i thank you so just due diligence to see what extent that jenny was in touch with members of the trump administration an unprecedented attempt to overturn the election results. >> republican line go ahead please. >> hi braided have a couple of questions and you are saying that justice recused himself

from january 6 thing, and so with that mean that the new justice, that may be confirmed, should recuse herself from anything that happens to donald trump because of some of the writings that she wrote about donald trump and i think that she should also recuse herself from everything that has to do with donald trump. >> somehow familiar with those writings and i think that potential you are referring to the case that sheth wrote as a opinion that she wrote as a judge and yes, if that opinion repealed, i think that the timing is off but let's presume that case were appealed to the supreme there is a roll if you're onrt the case has a lower court judge and then you become a justice, you have to read hundred recuse from the case of it shows up on your docket is on the supreme court docket in that happens all of the time that

still happens in the justice toledo has not been little card judge in 15 or 16 years and he's still recusing cases that were lending their way to the third circuit when he was lower court judge and from the supreme court cases that 16 years later somehow showing up in his office similarly john roberts and all of them still do that, and kavanaugh and there's the newer justices of course is more likely that cases they heard will be headed of but justice kennedy refused from a case years ago that he participated in 1985, and so yes, to the extent of that anything that judge ketanji brown jackson wrote about trump as a federal judge an official capacity, she is required to refuse should be, and i'm confident that she will.

>> you talk about some of the elements that what i could've ethic look like and what else would you like to see a part of that. >> sure if you would look at the code of conduct for the u.s. judges which apply to every federal judge in our system and by the supreme court, is fairly good in terms of what it would cover for the supreme court justice it would say currently says judges should apple the integrity of the office and maintain impartiality and treat all the litigants and parties and lawyers with respect is a good ethical things to follow in a fewew things that i would adds think that recently a lot of justices speaking at the man's bethere was one briar spoke outf texas in one the smoke in florida and one in utah that were pretty expensive and i think the briar one was like $500 ahead and justices really should not be lending their names or anything like that to fund raiser so i would like to see more clear that not only are

we refraining is justices from throat printed political activities we a refraining from partisan activities and if briar for example i think he was at the university of texas in arlington, sorry there's no way that would cost $500 meal and a pursuit three years from now, if you want to do like a, where a great university and you got justice prior to come so come to this evening that is why birds should not be $500 ahead to listen to a talk from a supreme court justice and i think that the thomasst ones were both undr 200 bucks so those are less likely to be fundraising events because we knoww our expense the expensive party planning could be if you've recently planted wedding, you know how expensive it can be but you know i think overall, just be careful about not letting the procedure of the office of fundraising something i would add to the code hand but the headline here is that the current code of congress for

u.s. judges is very well written it when i sing a lot to move out from the lower court. >> this is from roseann wisconsin democrats line. >> okay yes personally would like to say thank you mr. roth for what you do because i really feel like you job is relevant especially in this political climate in this day and age and i think that what is going on here is nothing but complete sour grapes mr. trump plus the election and other going to go after the integrity of how we vote and never in history of our country have i seen anything like this is been things like absentee voting and you know, you can go back to when president bush one against al gore, and in the supreme court

and they said that down to florida and then ended ended up being harassed decision to shut the whole t thing down so never got to the exact total vote in that situation but you cannot go after the integrity of the voters in voting system that we have just because you lost the election and sour grapes about a. >> okay thank you. >> i'm good. >> okay finish in oklahoma, republican line go ahead seen a client would and from what i understand, you want him to accuse himself or something his wife said. >> oh no no no, that is not why but i will explain the sorry continue your question. >> okay, well i thought it i was about the text that his wife made this what you wanted him to recuse himself so my point was

that being married, anybody knows that just because your wife or your husband has a point of view does not mean that that is necessarily your point of view and also you know, as a matter of freedom of speech, she is allowed to say whatever she was an express her opinion and why shouldn't affect on how he makes a judgment. he has been very great justice and he does make these decisions based on what somebody else said based on the facts that are presented in the constitution. >> absolute there sorry mr. awful had. >> yes and i think that there are three reasons why he should recusing one is that the reasonable belief that jenny and clarence spoke about what was going on as this effort was

unraveling. the reference their best friend in the text message for me is not good it did not go well it is probably justice thomas the second reason is that we did not talk about this yet but the refusal statutes, there is one section of it that says that you or your spouse interest can be implicated in the case and typically means financial interest so jenny was being paid somehow by these doers then that implicates this part of the law but you know she was clearly interested in getting this election overturned and it was in her interest generally and financial interest in so if you have these interests y being advocated you as a justice, and his spouse, use a justice per federal law are required to and

the third thing is, we are talking about reasonable people here and i've been doing this for years andi i can't think oa single supreme court ethics scandal that is been this big in my time doing i this in me not even since there taking side payments in the 60s and so to me this is sort of broken through at a reasonable person would believe that for all of the reasons weor discussed, the best friend, the interest of the fact that as i said earlier, this would this coup attempt would find the necessity to reach the supreme court worry spouse would be asked to rule on these reasons, reasonable person in the justices integrity was an funeral bully billy that he was not partially was had a bias in this case the standard is maybe it is not the best standard in a that it's vague about the current standard and federal law has been for 50 years the justices so disqualify

impartiality is reasonably question and i think that most of us here try to be reasonable people we believe that pressing recuse from all 5000 position they come before the supreme court, because justice thomas compromised, that is ridiculous is just saying that these very finite discrete amount of cases, thou out but then figured out. >> website, core .com and gave roth is their executive director think you for your time today. >> thank you for having me. >> cspan's washington journal, every day we take your calls live in the year on the news everyday we discussed policy issues that impacts you and coming up wednesday morning, texas republican congressman michael burgess discusses president biden economic and energy policies, plus congressional news of the day

and joanna, from dorton university health insurance reforms, talks about the affordable care act and the biden administration to strengthen the healthcare laws and in california pretty congresswoman nick, on the end of title 42 and biden administration border policies and process congressional news and wash washington journal life seven eastern, wednesday morning ..

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