>> yes, sir. >> i want a report of the number of people that was assigned to kennedy when he -- the day he die and the number assigned to me now if mine are not less i want themless right quick. >> yes, sir. >> if i can't ever go to the bathroom, i won't go. i promise you i won't go anywhere. i'll stay right behind these black gates. >> "presidential recordings," find it now on the c-span now mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. joining us is gah serving as executive director. thank you for giving us your time. guest: thanks for having me on. host: tell the audience a little bit about your organization, what your mission is as you would describe it and how you are financially backed if you would. guest: so it is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that advocates for greater accountability and transparency. -- transparency in all federal courts, primarily the supreme court.

we are funded by average americans who have given us funds and think we are doing a good job. host: do you take a certain point of view when it comes to issues with the supreme court? as it -- is it a partisan take? guest: we have always been nonpartisan. going on 7.5 years we have been around. we do not believe ethics or transparency in the government has a part -- individuals from certain parties may think one way or another but we work with republicans and democrats, conservatives and liberals everyday to try to bring the supreme court and other federal courts kicking and screaming in it -- into that when he first century. host: with your title, what is the part that needs to be fixed? guest: do you have more than 30 minutes? i think we have six main fixes, one is median broadcast, thinking also bring court hearings should be livestreamed. we want life tenure on the supreme court, we think the supreme court should have a code

of conduct, we think the justices public appearances should be livestreamed as well, we think their financial books, disclosures they have to fill out every year should be posted online, and we think they should be more forthcoming about what stocks they own and when they recuse. host: i suppose several of those bullet points would fall into the news or stories that have been coming up between justice thomas, emails and texts by his wife jenny. guest: yes. it has been a busy few weeks. we hope that it spurs the koran congress to action. guest: with that specific story, what is your organization's take on what transpired over the last couple weeks since we found out about this? guest: it is a unique story in american history. january 6 and the coup attempt is unique to begin with but the fact the supreme court justices wife was involved in planning the efforts to subvert our democracy is very concerning given how close clarence and

janine are. it was likely that jenny was referring to clarence in her text messages talking about her best friend, that is how they talk about each other. the fact the purple strategy, h.e.r., mark meadows, and the election subvert servers, if that is a word, were trying to reach the supreme court. the goal was to get to the supreme court and justice thomas for hearing election cases, many who reach the super in court. there is a case texas brought, one in pennsylvania, and it was a case about january 6 two. clarence was the lone vote against allowing congress to subpoena former president trump's documents related to that investigation by the congressional committee. there are a lot of touch points if you will where the work of jenny and clarence has been

intersected and we want to separate out that vent diagram as much as possible and restore the integrity of the court. host: i suppose critics would say that as far as the bend diagram illustration, if there are straight lines between the texts and clarence thomas's decision-making that he makes, would you say those exist or would you say you have to look at those things as you look at them as far as curiosities or at least suspicions but not necessarily something that ties the two together? guest: i just look at the federal law. federal law says all justices shall disqualify themselves in any case in which they -- which their impartiality might be questioned. maybe some of the viewers out there don't think i'm being reasonable but i think if you talk to legal ethics scholars, read the editorial pages, i'm getting text messages from my friends i never hear from about what is going on at the supreme court. i think the reasonable person

believes there is some sort of ethical issue that we are seeing. the fact i'm talking to you now about this clearly is a reasonable person that thinks there's an ethical issue with clarence thomas due to these texts. i think he should step aside from any january 6 related cases at the supreme court, all 2020 election cases. the fact there are some percolating still is crazy but that is the case. and the supreme court should proactively say these will be our ethic guide rails. it is weird we are the only court in america that does not have a binding code of ethics that lets us take the leap and join everyone else to say this is what an ethics code is and what it should be and we will follow it to restore public faith in our institution. host: our guest is with us until 9:30. if you want to ask questions, (202) 748-8001 for republicans. democrats, (202) 748-8000.

independents, (202) 748-8002. text us at (202) 748-8003. one of those people that were asked about these kinds of things related to the last question i asked was senator josh hawley on the senate, walking in the senate core doors, asked about the relationship between clarence thomas and his wife and the texts. i want to play his response and then i want to to respond to it. [video clip] >> what is the implication the justice is signing off on her text messages? >> she was texting mark meadows to overturn the election. >> i get that, but, listen, she is an independent adult woman. it seems strange to me all of these calls for her husband to be watch, minding her better? frankly i think it is misogynistic. it is like ginni thomas is out there saying stuff, you better go get her under control. you are responsible for what she

says. she is an independent person, you know? she has got her own political views and have been doing this for a long time. if you want to take issue with her that is fine but she is not on the bench. to me it seems like wow. host: so that a senator hawley's take, what do you think? guest: it does not hold water. this is a strategy ginni thomas was a part of that would lead to somehow the supreme court itself overturning the election results. if you cannot see how the integrity of the justice would be impugned there, i don't know what to tell you. i think there is an unfortunate partisan makeup of some of these calls for recusal. there's a bill with the supreme court ethics act and is all democrats and no republicans have supported it yet. never mind four years ago pretty soon after justice ginsburg made

her comment calling trump a faker and a liar, there was a bipartisan agreement and house judiciary committee to impose a code of conduct on the supreme court. just like with so many things in washington, these issues, it is difficult for folks including senator hawley to take out -- step away from retreating to one partisan corner. clarence thomas is under attack it, it's gotta be some democratic plot. i'm saying respectfully, senator, this is not some plot, this -- obviously jenny has been doing this a long time, to quote what he said, but when you are working in circles that lead directly to your husband's court , the recusal law is fairly clear and it says of your white has any interest -- your spouse as an interest that could come

before you as a federal judge, it is your duty to not participate in that issue or case. i think that is where i land and hopefully more republicans land as well. host: it was back earlier this year where your organization asked the chief justice for development of a code of ethics for the supreme court. what came of that and what do you envision that would look like? guest: so two things, i was sitting behind justice kagan in 2019 when she told the house appropriations kid maybe that the chief justice was working on a code of conduct. i followed up and have other folks followed up with supreme court sources and looks like there has not been any work on it since 2019, which is sad. and i work with legal ethics scholars, about two dozen of them, that before the text message stories came out, back february 3, they sent a letter to the chief justice saying we need a binding code of conduct and believe the justices should

write it on themselves. now we move to a point where congress is taking a serious look at this. there will be hearings in the house, hearings in the senate, house and senate members have also written a letter to the supreme court. somehow in 2022, it's the way that things get done but about two dozen house and senate democrats wrote a letter to the chief justice asking for binding code of conduct. things are moving. i think the focus on the hill right now is -- at least from the majority side -- is to get judge jackson confirmed and then come back from easter recess and have some of these hearings. these issues are not going away. we know things are going to come out as the january 6 committee gets more documents. i would expect a constant drumbeat and may be a subpoena for ginni thomas in the coming weeks. host: gabe roth of fixt

hecourt joining us. caller: thank you for taking my call. i hope gabe will continue to do what he is doing, start at the top, which is the supreme court, and maybe come on down. we will come on down to all of them, government, and get it straightened out because all of it is ms as far as i'm concerned. host: is that your comment or do you have a question for our guest? caller: yes. husband and wife, no. the things they are doing is ridiculous. it really is. then he's going to descend on whether or not to take the january 6 thing? no. because he know his wife was involved. do you hear a pillow talk? host: that is mary in ohio. guest: again it is just an unprecedented case. you never even list -- justice

ginsburg husband was involved in the law, jane roberts was involved in the law and chief justice roberts's wife, and they were political. we knew marty was in politics but they were never involved to this extent. to give one example, senator sherrod brown of ohio, his wife accomplished journalist was in the gallery and went up to chief justice's roberts wife during the trump impeachment that chief justice presided over and asked how do you think things are going? what is she say back? can't talk about it. so there's a way to be ethical and marty ginsburg gave up his law practice when justice ginsburg became justice ginsburg. there are ways to be above suspicion and the thomases are not doing that. host: a viewer asked this question of you, who would enforce engines on violations of the so-called code of ethics?

enforcement would imply the court is subordinate to the other branches. guest: that's the 64 million dollar question, how would you enforce? two answers, one is there is always the option of impeachment and removal. i do not think we have met that far or we are really anywhere close to that far in this case but there is always -- that is always an enforcement mechanism that congress has an order to keep judges and justices in line. there have been a dozen federal judges impeached in american history and only once up in court justice and he was not removed. that was about 200 years ago. that is always an option, maybe not in this case, but and potential future cases because things could always get worse. the second thing i would say is there is value in having a code, whether it be court of public opinion or peer pressure saying chief justice roberts or justice

breyer, however, saying we are supposed to uphold this cold and abide by the scriptures and you are not doing it and it is imputing the integrity of the core. the supreme court is at its lowest popular approval ever i think. it behooves the justices to take proactive steps to improve that trust and the binding code of conduct would be one step. my organization released a 10 point plan in the last week saying how we could fix this scandal and code of conduct was only one of them. we want stronger recusal standards, we want to be a -- to be easier to file a recuse, we want the judicial conference to explain what political activity justices and just -- and judges can participate in. a code of conduct is easy shorthand to say there are a lot of ethical shortcomings. we definitely need that. i think it is step one in a more comprehensive, real overhaul of how we look at the ethics and

transparency of our highest court. host: this may not surprise you but we did the survey this year on the supreme court in one of the questions we asked about it is the code of ethics for the court needed 72% of those responding saying yes, 15% no, 14% not sure. guest: consistent with what our organization has polled often times using the same polestar. we have gotten usually in the 70% to 85% range and it is across-the-board. it is the same number, at least in our polling, and we have been tracking this before the court was created back when it was called the coalition for court transparency in 2013. democrats, independents, and republicans say the same thing. it's not like 80% are democrats and when he percent are republicans. it is consistent across partisan lines. i think it's important to say may be in washington, the josh hawley's on the world -- of the world are not on board but when you explain that the supreme

court is the only court in the country that does not have a binding code of ethics, that's really inexcusable and does not touch any of the partisan touch points it doesn't washington. host: there's a lot more to that court survey that we did if you want to check it out on our website. we have a special section for if you want to read the responses. let's hear from john in washington state, republican line. hi. caller: how are you this morning? guest: good, thanks. caller: i wonder what gives you the right to comment on somebody's free speech? you don't do anything that amounts to anything? guest: thank you for your assessment of my work. i think there is value to having nonpartisan watchdogs in any form of government. the president, when the president issues -- says things which he can say via his rights

to free speech, lots of folks respond. when the members of congress go out and say certain things, folks have the right to respond. that is also part of their free speech in my free speech. i think i have a track record of being balanced, and when justice sotomayor -- i'm just as critical of justice sotomayor when she flies first class to rhode island to give a talk and is not reported on her financial disclosures as i am to justice scalia when he flies on a private plane to texas to hunt and does not reported on his disclosures. so i think there are naturally organizations -- we are a lean, small organization. it is not like we are taking any tax money or anything. i think there are plenty of like-minded folks throughout the country that really want to be sure that we have the highest court in the land, which by the way 20 years ago was not having such an impact on our lives. just in the last 20 years we

have had the supreme court decide two presidential elections. they alter the decisions of life and death, every voting law, abortion law, health care law, anything major happening in the united states, the final word has been the supreme court. it used to be the supreme court would say part or all of the law is unconstitutional and then congress would go back and rewrite the law. so congress or the president would redo the executive order, but the executive branch and congress itself are still gridlocked. the supreme court employers a vacuum in washington implores a vacuum. i thing we want nonpartisan watchdogs insuring the nine judges making those life-and-death decisions are above core ethically. that is what we see our job to be. host: you talked about the recusal standards, talked about that, what is the standard and what should change about the standard? guest: so right now, it is

anytime a justice's impartiality is impugned, they have to step aside. they say if they have a financial stake in the case or their spouse does or if they know facts of the case, worked on the case in a previous job, they have to recuse. i do not think that is good enough. i think the federal judiciary and federal judges are sort of taking advantage of that position and the lax enforcement in punishment standards. and are being flown around the country by political donors and are getting lavish gifts and are able to do that and sometimes they reported on their annual disclosures and sometimes they do not because of personal hospitality exemption. so just to use a recent example, judge jackson is a member of the harvard board of overseers, and there is a -- consuming --

assuming judge jackson does confirms, she would be on the board. she already said she would recuse, but to me it is almost less about being on some harvard board to needs to recuse and over the course the last decade, judge jackson has been flown to boston and put up in a nice hotel and give nice meals by harvard university, something like 40 or 50 times. so similarly, justice scalia on the trip in which he passed away in texas, he was flown out there by this guy john who had previously had a case before the supreme court. i do not know if that was the only time justice scalia had been flown out to john's hunting ranch, but i thing there should be a little cooling off period that if you are getting a free flight by whoever and that whoever finds themselves before the supreme court, there needs to be a little break between when you can hear the case.

similar that she wasn't perfect when he did this but similar to how judge thurgood marshall -- justice thurgood marshall accused from ncaa and naacp cases -- thinking of basketball, ncaa. naacp cases for his first 15 years on the court because he used to work at the naacp. that has been disproven and there have been a few naacp cases over the years that he did serve on but generally recused from most of the naacp cases. there has to be some sort a standard that says you have given me this benefit or i used to work for you, let there be a cooling-off period. kind of like how there is supposed to be for congress. if you are a member of congress, you are not supposed to lobby for a year. no one follows that but the law says there is a year cooling-off period. i would like to see a cooling-off period for judges on the supreme court and times in which they recuse. host: let's go to our independent line, north

carolina, this is marcy. good morning. caller: hey there. yes, you started off with saying you are nonpartisan but then you turn around and january 6 is a coup attempt. that has not been proven. it is not a coup attempt. i would like to know what cases should our bg recused herself from, what cases should justice sotomayor have recuse herself from? guest: sure. justice sotomayor has a very lucrative publishing contract with -- they emerged so many times, i think it is now penguin random house but the time it came to the supreme court it was just random house and that his wearable contract was. there was a petition brought against random house in 2013 and 2013 and she did not recused

from the case. to me it was clear justice ginsburg had an immense toward president trump so i think there's an argument to be made that any case in which president trump was the named litigant or party, justice ginsburg should recuse herself. because some of the cases, most of them, our official capacity cases like as president or trump personally, i would have to double check to see which specific cases because when you are the president, you are sued a lot and there are a lot of cases that reach the supreme court when you are trump versus x or biden versus y. it is not republican or democrat or conservative or liberal the call to nori six they could attempt. somebody won the election, that some but he was president biden, and it's unfortunate people are still not open to that. host: when it comes to the emails of ginni thomas, fixed court apparently filed a freedom of information act for those? guest: yeah, we want to see who else she was emailing. we do this for a lot of

different instances. the justice sotomayor example, she gave a speech at the university of rhode island, a public university, and did not report it -- or travel -- on her financial disclosure report. we sent a request to rhode island saying did you all pay for her trip and hotel and it turned out they did. so that is something you need to put on your financial disclosure report. she is working on fixing it. similarly for all of the supreme court nominees, both republican and democratic, we sent information reports for kavanaugh, for gorsuch, for the chief judge who just became it in the fourth circuit. virginia thomas, it is not only likely she sent tax messages any most of the white house but it is possible she sent text messages and emails to doj

officials. we know that the department of justice officials, jeff clark is the guy's name, specifically was also involved in this attempt to overturn the election. we want to see how deep that conspiracy ran and potentially she mentioned or her husband on that, i think it is due diligence to see to what extent ginny was in touch with members of the trump administration in this unprecedented attempt to overturn the election results. host: in massachusetts, republican line, go ahead. caller: hi. you are saying justice, should recuse himself from the january 6 thing. would that mean that the new justice that may be confirmed should recuse herself from anything that happens to donald trump because in some of her writings she wrote about donald

trump i think she should also recuse herself from everything that has to do with donald trump , including january 6. guest: so i'm not familiar with those writings. i think you potentially are referring to the don mcgahn case that she wrote -- the opinion she wrote as a judge and yes, if that opinion were appealed, i think the timing is off but let's presume that case were appealed to the supreme court, there is a rule that if you rule on a case as a lower court judge and then you become a justice, you have to recuse from that case if it shows up on your docket on the supreme court docket. that happens all of the time. that still happens. justice toledo had not been a lower court judge in 15 to 16 years and he still recusing from cases that were going through the third circuit when he was lower court judge. he is still recusing from

supreme court cases 16 years later somehow showing up in his office. john roberts still does that, sotomayor, all of them still do it. it was gorsuch, kavanaugh, and baratz, the newer justices so it is more likely cases they heard on lower courts are going to be headed up, but justice kennedy recused from a case three years ago that he participated in in 1985. to the extent that anything judge jackson wrote about trump as a federal judge in that official capacity, she is required to recuse should the same case be headed to scotus. i am confident she will because everyone else on the court has done the same thing. host: you talked about some of the code of ethics would look like. what else would you like to see? guest: if you look at the code of conduct for u.s. judges which applies to every federal judge in our system besides the supreme court, it is fairly good

in terms of what it would cover for the supreme court justice. it would say -- currently says judges should uphold the integrity of the office, maintain impartiality, treat all litigants and parties and lawyers with respect. these are good, ethical can ons to follow. recently, a lot of justices have been speaking at events. there was one that breyer spoke at in texas, another spoke at an florida, thomas spoke out in -- justices should not be lending their names or anything like that to fundraisers. i would like to see it more clear that not only are we refraining as justices from political activity, we are also refraining from partisan activity. to use the breyer example, i think he was at the university of texas at arlington. there is no way a $500 for the meal it ate that -- he ate that

night. number 2, 3 years from now if they say they our great university because we have the justice come, it should not be $500 per had to listen to a supreme court justice. the thomas ones were under $200, so those are less likely to be fundraising events. we all know how expensive party planning, anyone that is likely recently planning a wedding knows how expensive party planning can be. overall, just being careful about not letting the prestige of the office to fundraising is something i would add to the code. i think the headline here is the current code of conduct for u.s. judges is very well written and would not take a lot to move that from the lower court up to scotus. host: this is from roseanne in wisconsin, democrats line. caller: first of all, i would like to say thank you, mr.

roth, for what you do. i think your job is relevant, especially in this political climate in this day and age. i think that what is going on here is nothing but a complete sour grape that they fed mr. trump -- that they said mr. trump lost the election and now they will go after the integrity of how we vote. never in the history of our country have i seen anything like this, to spin things like absentee voting and mail-in voting are different. you can go back to when president bush won against al gore. that went all the way to the supreme court. they threw it back down to florida and it ended up being catherine harris's decision to shut the whole thing down. so we never got to know the exact total vote in that

situation, but you cannot go after the integrity of the voters and voting system that we have just because you lost the election. host: thank you. mr. roth, anything from that? guest: i'm good. host: finish it off with dean on the republican line. caller: hi. from what i understand you want him to recuse himself from something his wife said. guest: no. i'll explain but continue question. caller: i thought it was about a text his wife made and that is why you wanted him to recuse himself. my point was any married couple out there knows that just because your wife or husband has a point of view does not mean that is not necessarily your point of view. it is a matter of freedom of

speech. she is allowed to say whatever she wants and express her opinion, and why should that affect how he makes a judgment? he has been a great justice and he does not make decisions based on what some one else says. he makes it based on the facts presented an constitution. host: have to leave it there. mr. roth, go ahead. guest: i think there are three reasons why he should recuse. one is there is the reasonable belief that ginny and clarence spoke about what was going on as this coup effort was unraveling. the reference to her best friend in the text message is not good, does not bode well. that is probably justice thomas. the second reason is the recusal

said -- and we did not talk about this yet -- the recusal statute has one last section that says if you are your spouse's interests can be implicated in a case -- what does interests mean? typically financial interest. so if ginny was being paid somehow by the coup doers, that them legates this part of the law, but she was clearly interested in getting selection overturned and it had been in her interest generally and in her financial interest. so if you have these interests implicated, you as a justice, your spouse's interest are replicated, you as a justice per federal law are required to recuse. that is the second thing. the third thing is we are talking about reasonable people here. i've been doing this for years and i cannot think of a single supreme court ethics scandal that has been this big in my time doing this, maybe when one

was taking side payments in the 1960's. for me, this has broken through any reasonable person would believe, for all the reasons we discussed, that best friend, the interests, the fact i said earlier this would -- this coup attempt would by necessity reach the supreme court where a spouse would be asked to rule, for all these reasons, a reasonable person could think the justice's integrity was impugned, that he was not partially and has a bias in this case and that is what the standard is. maybe it is not the best standard, i will grant you it is vague, but the current standard in federal law as it has been for 50 years is a justice shall disqualify if his impartiality is reasonably questioned. i think most of us here are trying to be reasonable people and we believe that -- we are not saying recuse from all 5000 petitions that come before the supreme court, because justice

thomas is compromised. that is ridiculous. it's just saying in these very finite discrete amount of cases, bowel out and let the other -- bow out and let the other justices handle it. host: