Chief Justice John Roberts declined to meet with Democratic senators to discuss Supreme Court ethics following reports that two controversial flags were on display at Justice Samuel Alito’s homes.
Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, sought a meeting with Roberts to urge him to ensure Alito recuses himself from Jan. 6 cases and “to discuss the Supreme Court’s worsening ethics crisis.”
Roberts declined their request Thursday.
“I must respectfully decline your request for a meeting,” Roberts wrote in a letter. “As noted in my letter to Chairman Durbin last April, apart from ceremonial events, only on rare occasions in our Nation’s history has a sitting Chief Justice met with legislators, even in a public setting (such as a Committee hearing) with members of both major political parties present.”
“Separation of powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence counsel against such appearances,” Roberts continued. “Moreover, the format proposed — a meeting with leaders of only one party who have expressed an interest in matters currently pending before the Court — simply underscores that participating in such a meeting would be inadvisable.”
Roberts’ response comes one day after Alito sent a letter to Sens. Durbin and Whitehouse notifying them that he will not be recusing himself from Jan. 6 related cases before the court.
Alito blamed his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, for the upside-down American flag which was displayed at their Virginia home in January 2021, days after the Jan. 6 2021 attack at the Capitol, and the “Appeal to Heaven” flag at their New Jersey property last month year. Both flags are linked to the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement which questioned the legitimacy of President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
“A reasonable person who is not motivated by political or ideological considerations or a desire to affect the outcome of Supreme Court cases would conclude that this event does not meet the applicable standard for recusal,” Alito wrote in the letter. “I am therefore duty-bound to reject your recusal request.”
Democrats have been arguing that the flags indicate that Alito is not impartial and called on him to recuse himself from cases related to the 2020 election and Jan. 6. Such cases include whether Trump’s has absolute immunity from prosecution in special counsel Jack Smith’s election subversion case and a Jan. 6 case that challenges an obstruction law used to prosecute hundreds of rioters, including members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys.
