Accountable.US: Justice Alito’s Ethical Failures Demand Immediate Recusal

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, in response to reports that Justice Samuel Alito had a private conversation with President-elect Donald Trump just hours before Trump sought Supreme Court intervention in his criminal sentencing, Accountable.US President Caroline Ciccone released the following statement, highlighting serious concerns about the erosion of judicial ethics and the politicization of the Supreme Court and calling for a congressional investigation into the call and for Justice Alito to recuse himself from President Trump’s upcoming hush money case before the Supreme Court.

“Justice Samuel Alito’s choice to have an ex parte conversation with a litigant who has a pending, personal case before the Supreme Court is deeply imprudent and a glaring violation of basic ethical standards. Alito’s excuse that the private call was about a job recommendation seems implausible at best, given the fact that justices rarely (if ever) speak directly with a President or President-elect about any subject matter, let alone a reference check.”

“In the rest of the United States, federal judges are (and must be) scrupulously careful about avoiding all ex parte contact with litigants, even if it is ostensibly social or fleeting. The same rules of ethics and common-sense apply to the Supreme Court and to a President-elect.”

“This is part of a broader, disturbing pattern of actions by Justice Alito—namely, his unreported luxury vacation funded by a conservative billionaire, the decision to fly an American flag upside-down at his residence after January 6th, and his flippant jokes about overturning Roe at a religious liberty summit in Rome. Time and again, Alito offers excuses for indiscretions, but at this point it raises serious questions about his judgment.”

“If Americans are supposed to take seriously the proposition that the Supreme Court is still an impartial institution, then it needs to live up to its own ethical standards. Specifically, Justice Alito must recuse himself from all upcoming cases in which President-elect Trump is a named party. In addition, Congress should investigate Alito’s—and other justices’—lapses in judicial ethics in order to strengthen the Court’s lax code of conduct. Anything less would confirm what so many already fear: that the Court has become overtly political and a playground for the powerful.”

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