Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Separate ethics complaints filed by members of Congress and an advocacy group against Justices Clarence Thomas and Ketanji Brown Jackson will not be referred to the Department of Justicefederal court officials announced.
The Judicial Conference of the United States said Thomas has agreed to follow updated guidelines on listing free private travel and gifts from friends, following earlier reports of undisclosed hospitality.
For her part, Jackson has amended her financial statements after complaints about her husband’s consulting income as a doctor.
Democratic senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), along with Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA), had requested an investigation by the same judiciary into the undisclosed hospitality he provided to Thomas the billionaire friend Harland Crow. ProPublica had reported on several cases of private travel and accommodation over the years.
Judge Robert Conrad, who heads the policymaking body of the judicial conference, said in letters to lawmakers that Thomas had submitted amended financial disclosures “that address several issues identified in your letter.”
And Conrad said it was unclear whether the judiciary itself could make criminal referrals against a session Supreme Court member
“Because the Judicial Conference does not oversee the Supreme Court, and because any effort to grant such authority to the Conference would raise serious constitutional questions, one would expect Congress, at the very least, to affirm clearly any such directive. But that express directive does not appear in this provision,” Conrad said.
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SPENT OVER $100 MILLION ON DEI EDUCATION PROGRAMS IN PAST FOUR YEARS
The United States Supreme Court is seen during sunset. The court on Thursday morning rejected a bid that would have stopped the execution of Kevin Underwood. (Aaron Schwartz/SIPA USA)
Conrad noted that Whitehouse and Wyden had separately asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel to investigate Trump. Garland has not yet responded to this request.
Whitehouse in a statement criticized the decision of the Judicial Conference.
“On the surface, the judiciary is shirking its statutory duty to hold a Supreme Court justice accountable for ethics violations,” Whitehouse said.
The complaint filed against Jackson comes from Citizens for Renewing America, led by Russ Vought, who was appointed by President-elect Trump to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
Questions about ethics, including unreported private travel by some judges, have led the court to adopt its first ethics code last year.
Supreme Court of the United States (front row L-R) Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts, Associate Justice Samuel Alito and Associate Justice Elena Kagan, (back row L-R) Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson pose for their official portrait in the East Conference Room of the Supreme Court building on October 7, 2022 in Washington, DC. The Supreme Court has begun a new term after Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson officially joined the bench in September. ((Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images))
But compliance is left to each of them nine judgeswhich raises concerns that the court does not take its own standards of ethics enforcement seriously.
A two-year investigation by Senate Democrats released last week found that additional luxury trips by Justice Thomas in 2021 were not noted on his annual financial disclosure form.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Fix the Court, a group that advocates for greater judicial transparency, urged Congress to act.
“The Conference letters further underscore the need for Congress to create a new and transparent mechanism to investigate judges for ethics violations, as the Conference is unwilling to act on the only method we had assumed existed for do it,” said Executive Director Gabe Roth.
