come back to "washington journal." i'm joined by some 70 the co-founder and executive director demand c justice. welcome to the program. >> thanks for having me.

>> let me start with the mission of demand justice and how youit guys are founded. >> we are funded in 20 teen upper aggressive advocacy group that works on issues related to the state judiciary so we advocate for things like the code of ethics of the supreme court t in advocate for more transparency and accountability for supreme court justices but also judges at the lower court level and in certain states promoting the selection of diverse lawyers meaning public interest lawyers and public defenders and then we wait campaigns on the half of individual judges and judicial nominees in washington d.c.. usually pressing the biden of frustration to select more public defenders and public interest lawyers and one may do that we campaign on the half of those nominees confirmations. people know it's mostly from sick screen court agencies.

we did ketanji jackson's nomination to the supreme court and amy coney barrett when she was nominated and waged campaigns around those justices. those are the activities that where most famous. we are funded a combination of twoo things. we get support from his chances like familyra foundations that share our principals and beliefs. most of those institutions choose to remain anonymous and theof huge network of thousandsf grassroots supporters that donate to us in increments of one or $2. that let's talk about supreme court ethics. tell us how it's set up as far as ethics and oversight of the actions of particular supreme court justices. >> sure. there's very little little that touches the supreme court justices. there is three levels to the

federal judiciary. most people know about thefe supreme court which has nine justices and below the supreme court is the appeals court 13 circuit courts in this country known as thee appellate level d the district court judges. some states have just one district and some have multiple districts so the lower courts refers to the district and appellate court levels. the judges on the district and appellate court levels have a binding -- an entity called the judicial conference to impose these rules and ethical guidelines on lower court judges and ensure thene judges followe. in a code of ethics there's a process in a complaint to the file for matters to be investigated. none of that applies to the supreme court justices. the code of ethics the judicial conference hands down to the lower court judge says advisory when it comes to the supreme court justices. they will say they look at it

and they confirm make private decisions. ultimately they make their own calls about whether certain situations call for a stay or it will be improper to for them to take a trip sponsored by wealthy person. if certain situations come to light where are they failed to recuse themselves if they went on a trip with a wealthy donor and people on the outside outside think think it shouldn't happen there's no process for anyone to call foul on that because there is no policing authority for the supreme court so it's a completely different from thehe system that the lower court judges follow and no authority that can -- >> if you'd like to call and ask a question or make a comment forecast you can do so now on her line for partydo affiliatio.

you can also send us a text or in direct with us on social media. there've been reports about justice clarence thomas and now reports about justice gorsuch on i believe a property transaction and even chief justice roberts wife. what are these revealing to you and what is concerning for you? >> therere very little rules tht governed the justices when it comes to outside sources of income for giftt giving. certainly with disclosure. justicesin are permitted to conduct certain activities on p the outside and they are allowed to teach a law school class. they are about to publish books and have for a few deals where they get paid. but there isn't a limit on how much disclosures on the outside so a lot of times in people try to influence the judges they are

barred from paying a consulting fee for making a monetary payment to them. when instead happens is those same people trying to influence the justices will instead curry favor with them by sponsoring lavish trips or bringing them up to expensive dinners at nice restaurants are paying for them to travel with their family on a personal vacation. and oftentimes that doesn't get disclosed that the late justice antonin scalia was famous for going to hunting lodges on vacations totally paid for by private people on the outside and never disclosingpe it. so with clarence thomas it's come to lights, from two decades harlan crow is a wealthy donor from republican party has been sponsoring justice thomas and his wifeee jenne vacations

including private clubs and clarence thomas is never disclose disclosed those trips which haveen huge values. clarence thomas has taken personal jets to mr. crowe's home in the diet that flight would be half o million dollars. he has never disclosed it in gorsuch for years he owned a piece of land in colorado that he was trying to sell along with one or two of other investment partners and for well over a year they had to lower the price for couple of times and literally within nine days of the supreme court justice the property was purchased at a very nice sum by the head of a major law firm that support this supreme court quite frequent in terms of his disclosure form it just lifted a range of income he received through anra llc in whh

was the name of the investment firm but he didn't devote this was a land deal and didn't oppose the nature of the income he was bringing in and didn't default the buyer is being the law firm.or this was all figured out by political which published a story in the last couple of weeks. these highlight the situation in terms of a lack of disclosure by supreme court justices and shedding light on the ways in which people if they want to curry favor with justices can do so. >> what you want to see happen which arest prior to? >> there has been a bunch of different ethics reforms proposals. lawmakers are getting veryry interested in an itch inducing new bills so there's one for incent offered by sheldon whitehouse in the senate and a representative from georgia and that bill would attack the conditions we have beensu

discussing. for incent he would say if you might have a belief that you should recuse it's not just your decision.. you don't get to decide on your own anymore. that bill would require other justices to have the same end to come to a collective decision about whether an individual justice should have tobo recuse. it applies while the lower court judges and would set upwe a process that if it was deviated from the code of ethics somebody could then import that code of ethics onto those justices. he would be for the disclosure requirements when it comes to gift giving and travel. and then their other proposals from other lawmakers senator warrener and congressman -- congresswoman jayapal tool would do other things as well. would limit justices from owning individual stocks.

most recently a bipartisan bill introducedth which is not wortht to get that suggest it's a bipartisan basis. lisa murkowski republican senator f from alaska who conferences with the democrats andne their bill is straightforward only three pages. it literally says supreme court has one year to adopt a code of ethics and doesn't say what it does but it says you have to put it out in public comment and impose it on yourself within one year. then you have to point somebody and then you get to decide to pay this or. gets to decide who they appoint and someone would have toet be appointed to be inso charge of e enforcing that code to the justices from that point forward. it means a lot for the justices to fill in. requires a code of ethics to apply with the one you're so maybe that's an opportunity. >> we will start taking taking calls but i want to show you a

portion from the senatee judiciary hearing senator john kennedy of louisiana republican who says this is all one-sided. >> the absence of an ethics code written by congress in the statute doesn't mean justices let guidance or accountability. justices and judges routinely consult with existing code of conduct and our requires recusal in certain circles like financial and just and we all know that. the justices are subject to strict disclosure rules just like my colleagues here. not only is this democratic proposal unconstitutional it is unnecessary. the attacks on conservative justices are targeted. they are exaggerated.

the danger isn't robed justices are operating without ethics. it's that doma aren't winning every fight and they find that reality intolerable. i've been disappointed by the supreme court b opinions to my democratic colleagues should feel letter hurt feelings reported move on for the sake of the t constitution. look, the agenda driven story here is justice thomas had a rich friend who had no business before the united states supreme court. for context let's recall that history is littered with examples of public officials failing to disclose their everyy transaction. we can acknowledge it. we can acknowledge it's the right thing to do.ge it is a we can do that without maligning each justices motives

andan the entire institution's credibility. 's sakes. you know who else amended their disclosures of admissions? just as the ruth bader ginsburg. justice stephen breyer. two good people. justice jackson made multiple amendments three days, three days after president biden nominated him and not one senator brought that up during their confirmation hearings. not one of my colleagues here walked into our hearings with the buckets of mud they have turned against justice thomas. not one.ho >> brian what you think of that? >> some of the points the senator made he said it's unconstitutional for congress to impose -- and the supreme court and that's not the case. there are some arguments that it

may not be doable by legislation but the code of ethics is a broadat consensus. there's plenty of precedent for congress to fill in the blanks on certain things about how the court operates for incent. the court has had a change by congress six times for the court meets every year on the first of october, the first monday of october something step by statute. the court can decide a case and the justices are there that have a quorum based on a law passed by congress so there's ample precedent for congress to set out the court does business and setting a code of ethics would be constitutional. in terms of this as being something that democrats are cherry-picking about the cases coming out in court these days one of the witnesses that some of the testimony for that hearing a former federal judge

who was a shortlisted for the supreme court for many years under former president and the lawyer that advised mike pence on january 6. the federalist society lawyer at credentialed conservative lawyer and he provided testimonies to the committeer, yesterday saying he would be constitutional to it'sa code of ethics and incumbent on the supreme court to apply a code of ethics for public support and trust as an institution. so don't take it from me. take it from judge luttig. senator kennedy is on board with the bill. a few of the points i would take issue with what the senator saia pitts what about what he said about it being a targeted attack on conservative justices were his liberal justices are being ignored. >> i think i would say couple of things.ay number one none of these

revelations came to light by the democrats. they have all been independent reporting by outside journalists. theth revelations regarding clarence thomas as two decades worth of vacations with harlan crow was reported by propublica's nonpartisan media outlets and the revelations that clarence thomas's mom had a home purchase by crow and neil gorsuch in the land deal that he failed to disclose and the land sold nine days after he is confirmed. that's something that democrats should have tried to figure outt by now but they didn't. it was politico that figured out. it's bad on senator kennedy's part to say that democrats are conflating a big scandal. this is independent reporting that they are reacting to. i would say yes there've been revisions of modifications to disclosure forms filed by the

supreme court justices over the years but does havee largely entailed errors or omissions. with clarence thomas' situation he profited from the sale of a home 10tu years ago purchased by harlan crow. the disclosure forms, the little law on the books right now requiring certain things to be disclosed by justices requires any sort of real estate transaction to the list on the form so it's hard to imagine that he forgot that. that is why some people are calling for not just a congressionalll investigation bt a criminal investigation by the justice department because failure to report that landed from 2014 by harlan crow of savannah georgia according to lot of outside experts is a violation of the 1978 government act. >> ohio is on thee line for democrats. morning. good morning.

a great session here. this is very topic related to two days lack of accountability from the top down. i'm reading strange justice right now and i was going to the tv to the clarence thomas hearings. i'm not sure what will become of the spring court if there is no accountability starting at the top. that is what i is lacking in ths new age. and whatever needs toll be done. we have got to keep turning over the leaves and looking underneath them. if a we do not we are guilty of complicit non-behavior. i think you are doing great work and i'm going to follow you

more. and we really need to magnify accountability. wish you happy birthday let's keep going here. we canav make a better. >> happy birthday, rich. go ahead. >> we all have an interest in the supreme court maintaining the trust of the public because otherwise the supreme court becomes a institution could the executive branch and the president as commander-in-chief the legislative branch congress controls the appropriations for the whole government including the judicial f branch. the judiciary power comes from its moral standings and the belief that operates in the public's trust in's trust in wisdom and decision decisions are being made ons the level ad not favoring certain interests

over others and for the public to lose faith in not being the of the supreme court there's a crisis of legitimacy. we should all be troubled by the fact that public poll after public poll has shown approval of the supreme court is hovering around 35% to 40%. that's something that's been true for a long time of other branches of government. it's true of other situations outside of government but the fact that it's happening in the supreme court is a problem because it derives its legitimacy from the public having faith and trust in it. >> here is the gallup poll about that. says approval of u.s. supreme court down to 40% which is aro w low and the chart here visually job approval right at 40 all the way back to 2001 than it was 42 a one point in 2005.

now it's down to 40%. adriana is in los angeles independent, goodd morning. >> my question is the separation of powers how do you enforce rules violations of justices with enforcement it means you would need a different branch of government to enforce ethics rules and as an analogy in california we have a supreme court in charge of lawyers and all the judges and justices in the state of california. the legislature has no power to other rules except to maybe enforce budgeting rules where they can take money away. i'm not sure i understand how you get around the separation of powers which is constitutional. with regards to the moral aspect

and the respect of the courts i don't understand what that has to do with the constitutional issue above that. thank you. >> the caller makes a great point and raises a question that has been a primary feature of how you wantma to have a code of ethics by the spring court how are you going to enforce it? what is the outside body woulds have purview and is supposed to be the highest court in the land so are you going to try to have the legislative branch police the judicial branch and that would raise the separation of powers. those are valid considerations and their different ideas of how to dealea with that but it definitely needs to be dealt with. i'll mention a couple of ways that ethics reform is trying to deal with that. all of them i should say before get to the specifics you can have the executive branch or the

legislative branch with the judicial branch of the various reform ideas consist of having a structure within the judicial branch and then it's just a matter of how you set that up. one approach is the white house bill that i mentioned by hank johnson in the house would say if someone files a complaint against a supreme court justice nothing happens because there's no process for resolving that dispute and i don't know people remember this from 2018 there were complaints against brett have how to know when he was eightun judge on the d.c. circut court of appeals and there is a process to investigate those es werents to see if they frivolous or meritorious. as soon as he was confirmed as the supreme court all of those complaints went into the trash because there's no process to adjudicate those complaints when you're supreme court justice.

the white house is proposing to change that to save the complaint comes in against a supreme court justice there would be a committee that would be comprised of all the chief judges from the circuit courts across the country and even though the circuit courts are one level below the supreme court the chief judges on those courts are very respective figures like merrick garland and president obama's nomination to the supreme court whose attorney to help united states. and the d.c. circuit esteemed people like that at even the supreme court justices would acknowledge a respectable people probably neutral and the outlets theyey would take on those types of complaints. sheldon whitehouse's idea to have an appellate court of chief justice justice is an idea and justice is denied in another idea from blumenthal from connecticut is to your point every agency of the executive branch has an inspector general that inspector general's

position is charged with protecting independent investigations of the i branch. during the obama destruction that inspector general and eric holder what have to do an interview. then it would go to capitol hill and testify and release it to the media and that was the way to hold accountability to the executive branch. they could similarly conduct investigations from within the branch. >> speaking of separation of powers the chief justice was invited to testify in front of the senate judiciary committee and the thus show the letter that was sent back to senator dick durbin saying mr. chairman thank you for your letter. i must decline your invitation to the testimony before the senate judiciary committee by the chief justice of bennett states is exceedingly rare and

as one might expect he might have separation of powers concern and importance of serving judicial independence. e invitation, the declining of the invitation, as well as he did release a nonbinding statement signed by all nine justices where they volunteered to adhere to ethics standards? guest: yes. chief justice roberts said it was rare for chief justices or other justices on the court to appear before congress. it is true. it has not happened a time but it has happened before so not completely without precedent. and beyond whether it is rare or not, there is a question of whether this is a missed opportunity on the chief justice's part. you just cited the polls that show public support for the court dwindling. you would think that as a custodian of the court's reputation and somebody that cares about preserving its image that the chief justice would want to put to rest concerns the

court is incapable of policing its own affairs. you would think he would want to avail himself to this opportunity. a lot of people are saying maybe dick durbin could not require this but it would have been in his own vested interest to allay some of these concerns. and so now the question is, what are the congressional democrats going to do about it? because of clarence thomas, dick durbin did not try to bring clarence thomas in, assuming he would decline. now he extended the offer to justice roberts and he has declined. groups like ours and other folks have said, well, if the court is not going to investigate it on its own and the court is not going to comply with voluntary request to appear before congress, congress is going to have to do its own investigation and will have to compel witness testimony from other people. not the justices themselves perhaps but other people involved in some of these controversies that have come to light. clarence thomas may say separation of power so i will not come up here, but harlan crow cannot say that.

the gentleman that bought the property in colorado cannot say that. there is increasing pressure now on congressional democrats, including chairman durbin, to do fact-finding with respect to the other individuals in these transactions. what were they trying to achieve? how did they meet the justices? how did they decide to let clarence thomas's mother continue to live in the house rent free for 10 years? how is that not financial benefit to clarence thomas? host: next in laurel, maryland, republican. good morning. caller: yes, good morning. i just have a couple of brief questions and then a comment. first of all to mr. fallon, did you watch the entire hearing on c-span? guest: i watched most of the hearing. cannot say i watched the whole thing. caller: clearly you didn't. also to the commentator from c-span, did you watch the entire hearing that took place? host: what point do you want to

make? caller: here is my point. you are throwing arrows and justice as gorgeous, as is mr. fallon. little did you realize that it came out in the hearing that when gorsuch sold his property as part of an llc, guess who he sold it to. a democrat who has been a significant donor to the democrat party. secondly, i don't think he saw when senator cruz portrayed first of all all of the derogatory magazine covers aimed at justice thomas, which is now kind of a second go around to go at justice thomas. secondly, he pointed out very clearly that sotomayor, kagan, all of the justices had had paid for trips, hundreds of trips.

150 in some cases. 160 in other cases. it sounds like we are aiming at the conservative court in singling out justice thomas, justice gorsuch, justice -- i'm sorry, i forgot his name. but the bottom line is let's not just pick and choose and say it is only the conservative justices who are taking advantage of getting these particular benefits. host: ok, joseph. let's get a response. guest: the caller mentioned that it came out in a hearing yesterday that the gentleman about neil gorsuch's property in colorado was a democrat. that was not new information. that was in the initial report that exposed the transaction in the first place. brian duffy is the head of the law from, the one that purchased property. he has given to democrats over

the years. in my view and the view of many people, the fact that he has given to democrats over the years does not mean it is not inappropriate for him as the head of a law firm that appears before the supreme court frequently to engage in a land deal with a sitting supreme court justice and not have that be disclosed. the fact that he gave to democrats before does not mean that is something that should be omitted from the disclosure form. i would just point out also in the hearing yesterday one of the things i did notice and thought was good that even as they decry the hearing itself as being a partisan affair, republican senators like lindsey graham, like chuck grassley said they hope the court will impose beefed-up ethics standards upon itself. they said they will not support some of these pieces of legislation that democrats are offering in the senate that would impose it on the court but that they did hope the justices would impose stricter requirements on themselves.

and in saying that, they are going farther than what chief justice roberts has said himself. because in that letter he sent to the committee that you read from a woman ago, a chief justice tried to convince everyone the existing standards are enough. they had a three-page letter signed by the justices saying these are the rules we look to and try to follow even though none of them are binding. so he said we have discovered, don't worry about it. here are all the citations of the existing authorities we refer to that will have to make judgment calls. republicans joined democrats yesterday saying we hope the court goes further. now we are not arguing about whether more should be done but whether it should be voluntarily done by the court or whether congress should step in. i think democrats would agree with republicans that if john roberts showed an inclination to impose a code of ethics on themselves, the democrats would cease to offer these bills. the problem is the court is not doing that so that is why democrats are saying we need to pass them. host: let's talk to william in

harrington, delaware, democrat. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i always wonder why we wait until the horse is out of the barn before we start dealing with these problems. in my opinion, i am about 68 years old at this point, and i have seen a lot of what goes on with the approval of these folks that sit in their ivory tower on the supreme court thinking they are above everything. we don't have that in this country. this country is supposed to be made for accountability. these folks do not have any of that. as far as i am concerned, the rock that exists far and wide in that institution is the responsibility lies in the people who were federalist society folks. they groomed them specifically to get on there. they are corporatists that do

not represent the majority of people in this country. what is happening now is proving my point. they think they are ab ove it all. if they get investigated, i hope that happens because they are sitting in judgment for the rest of us and coming out with these wacky judgments regarding the abortion issue and all kinds of things. guest: so the caller invoke the federalist society. this is a group that operates on the political right. they are a group that tries to influence judicial selections under republican presidents. and one of the main reasons for the formation of the federal society was because the founders of it started to get frustrated that republican presidents were putting justices on the bench who then went on to call it as they saw it and oftentimes had a hand in decisions they viewed as

liberal. john paul stevens was a republican president's nominee and he went on to be one of the leading liberal justices of the last 50 years. justice souter was elected by president bush, 41, and he went on to be a reliable vote for the liberal block on the supreme court. this frustrated people that formed the federalist society because they believe about what is the point of winning presidential elections if when we get the opportunity to pick justices, we are picking people up holding a woman's right to choose or people that are upholding the consideration of race in college admissions. so there was quite an impressive infrastructure and apparatus that draws hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions from social conservatives that oppose the right to abortion, business conservatives that help prop up the chamber of commerce interest before the court, and they created this filtering so only

certain types of people get considered anymore by republican presidents. sure enough, when donald trump was running for president in 2016, he released a short list of people and he promised he would only consider people on that list and that list was from people in the federalist society. host: up next, the republican line. caller: thank you for taking my call. this might be related to your previous answer. can you explain how justice roberts became due from justice -- became chief justice being the most junior justice on the supreme court? secondly, has there been any analysis? it seems like some of these decisions when they are a right-leaning majority, it tends to go the other way, kind of giving the impression he is being a straight shooter. leslie to mimi -- lastly to

mimi, from one of to another, gobble gobble. guest: ok. the position of chief justice of the united states, and that is the title by the way, that is a position a president makes a nomination for that spot on his own or her own. it is not just a position you arrived at because you have the longest tenure on the supreme court. if something happens eliciting chief justice, the president gets to nominate somebody for that seat, however they want. he or she can decide to either elevate a sitting justice to the position of chief justice or pick somebody from entirely off the bench and nominate that person to chief justice. if i am remembering my history correctly, senator o'connor decided she was going to retire because her husband was ailing and president bush announced he intended to nominate john

roberts who was the head of a big d.c. litigation firm who appeared before the supreme court frequently for that seat. within about two or three months, chief justice rehnquist passed away so they became two vacancies on the court at the same time. president bush said he would switch john roberts to be donated for the chief justice seat and then he nominated alito for the seat o'connor had held. host: all right. well, that is getting us to the end of the program. brian fallon,

democrat matt valerie foushee is the new representative, north carolina'