a suspicious mind would even wonder whether toshe rivkin -- whether attorney rivkin prepped his witness, as lawyers are want to do. with no means of factfinding, all this remains unknown. bad enough to opine on some general matter that may come before the court. worse when the opining brings a supreme court justice's influence to bear in a specific ongoing legal dispute, and worse yet when the influence of the justice might have been summoned by counsel to a party in that dispute. the timeline is suspicious. mr. rivkin's interview with justice alito was reportedly conducted in early july 2023. on july 11, chairman durbin and i had sent a letter to rivkin's client in that dispute, inquiring about undisclosed gifts and travel provided to justices. on july 20, the senate judiciary committee voted to advance my judicial ethics bill. and, by the way, the rivkin-alito congress has no authority argument fared very poorly that day in the committee. on july 25, mr. rivkin, by letter, refused to answer our information requests on the purported ground, and i'm quoted him here, any attempt by congr

rivkin's counseled by leonard leo with regard to the judiciary committee's investigation into mr.o accepted from paul singer and robin or cooley the second in 2008. justice alito's opining, apparently, at the behest of his friend and ally's lawyer, prompts of an argument being used to block inquiry into undisclosed gifts and travel received by justice alito. at the end, justice alito is the beneficiary of his own improper opining. this implicates cannon to be, strictures against improperly using one's office. to further a personal interests of justice, obstructing a congressional investigation that implicates his own conduct. joining us now, democratic senator, sheldon whitehouse of the great state of rhode island, where i spent some of my labor day weekend. he has a member of the judiciary committee and chair of the subcommittee on federal courts. also the host of the podcast, making the case. senator, here we have it, finally. an actual ethics complaint filed against justice alito. what brought you to this point? >> well, two things. first of all, i said on the judiciary committ

i ask unanimous consent to append the letter of lawyer bop for billionaire crow and the little of rivkin for billionaire operative leo at the end of my remark with the short one-paragraph letter, the tag-along letter from attorney clarke. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: lawyers bop and rifkin tell me that investigating this is unconstitutional under the separation of powers, we can't legislate supreme court ethics, so we can't investigate supreme court ethics. first, remember alongside separation of powers is its twins, checks and balances which requires branches, like the legislative branch to check and balance the other branches, like in this case the judicial branch. that's what we're doing here, checks and balances. let's dive down into the specifics a little bit more. they're primarily three topics. one, did the billionaire or the operative take improper advantage of the tax code in their dealings with the justices? that's what we're looking into. the finance committee has its own investigation, along with the judiciary committee, to focus on the tax side o