AOC and Raskin call out 'outlandish' ethics rules at Supreme Court, propose strict gift restrictions
Rep. Jamie Raskin and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez attacked the current ethics standards at the Supreme Court amid media scrutiny of Justices Thomas and Alito.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., attacked the current ethics standards at the Supreme Court amid media scrutiny of Justices Thomas and Alito, among others, for receiving gifts during their service.
"It's the highest court in the land with the lowest ethical standards," Raskin told MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes in an interview on Tuesday.
The Supreme Court Justices, Raskin said, are "the only governmental officials in the land who are not governed by a binding ethics code."
"There is no process by which we can hold any of them accountable," he added. "It's just outlandish for us to contemplate," Raskin later said of reports of large gifts to justices like Thomas and Alito.
CLARENCE THOMAS FORMALLY REPORTS 2019 TRIPS PAID BY FRIEND AND GOP DONOR HARLAN CROW
Rep. Jamie Raskin and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez attacked the current ethics standards at the Supreme Court amid media scrutiny of Justices Thomas and Alito, among others, for receiving gifts during their service. (MSNBC)
Raskin's claims come as he and Ocasio-Cortez,, both members of the House Oversight Committee, announced this week that they are seeking to introduce legislation to hold the members of the Court accountable for ethics violations.
"Congressman Raskin and myself will be introducing forthcoming legislation to even have the Supreme Court be subject to the same $50 gift rule that he and I are subject to, as everyone else who are members of Congress," Ocasio-Cortez told Hayes.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has acknowledged previously unreported trips overseas that were paid for by his friend, conservative businessman Harlan Crow, after pressure from the media and members of Congress over his ethics have increased.
Alito has also faced media scrutiny and is being accused of impropriety by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Multiple Democratic senators have called for Alito's recusal from cases related to the 2020 election, including the matter of Trump's immunity, because of revelations of an upside-down American flag and an "Appeal to Heaven" flag displayed at his homes following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
OVER 100 FORMER CLERKS OF JUSTICE THOMAS SIGN OPEN LETTER DEFENDING HIS INTEGRITY, INDEPENDENCE
Sen. Whitehouse revived an ethics concern he had with Justice Alito last year amid the ongoing backlash to flags flown at the justice's homes. (Getty Images)
Ocasio-Cortez also mocked the independence of the Supreme Court in her interview with Hayes, calling it a "Scout's Promise" approach to accountability in the highest court in the U.S.
"To have any one of our coequal branches be completely unaccountable to the others is paving the path to authoritarianism, tyranny, the abuse of power in the United States and it is structurally completely unsustainable," she said.
"It is not a question of if Congress has jurisdiction and power over the Supreme Court," Ocasio-Cortez continued. "It is what power are we going to exercise in order to rein in a fundamentally unaccountable and rogue court."
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Fox News' Brianna Herlihy, Bill Mears, Shannon Bream and Julia Johnson contributed to this report.
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