the problem. i mean, fundamentally, this is one third of the america federal government one of the three branches an american people absolutely hav a right to know if nine of the most powerful judges in th country, the nine most powerfu judges in the country, not the most powerful people in th country, have financial ties in the past, ongoing, like a guy who is your mother s landlord that could cause, a the very least, the appearance of a conflict of interest. right now, the justice regulate themselves, when it comes to ethics. nice word, if you can get it even though, you know, judge being bribed is one of the like, central canonical acts o corruption that you look up fo a corrupt state. happens all throughout history all around the world, all th time, right? you don t want judges to get bribed people tried to bribe them all the time and in corrup societies, corrupt governments they do get bribe. so, there is a reason to b vigilant and it s perfectly legitimate, as an oversight undert
so, there is a reason to b vigilant and it s perfectly legitimate, as an oversight undertaking, for one of the other branche of government to make sure tha their vigilant on this that, of course, is why th senate judiciary committee wants to hear from chief justice john roberts last week, committee chair dic durbin said justice roberts letter requesting either his testimony or the testimony of fellow justice quote, there s ample precedent for sitting justices of th supreme court to testify befor congress, including regardin ethics he is right. back in 2011, then justice stephen breyer and anthony scalia, you see them there testified before the senat judiciary committee on the rol of the court in american life, including the questions of
congress not for the supreme court. this is becoming a red hot issue now with revelations about justice thomas, all th way going back to what happene with his wife and the text messages around the januar insurrection, chris. but now as well with these disclosure rules because thi type of an arrangement may hav really been flagged by a ethics enforcer in those other branches of u.s. government. we don t have it in the suprem court and for people who car about the integrity of the court, they say this is an example of why you would wan to have that code, because the you wouldn t have thes questions of disclosure and of what exactly happened with thi transaction, and why it went down around this particula timing, and with these two particular parties, with the head of a law firm here with s many cases that wound up going before the court yeah, in the case of harlan crow, you know, the offense didn t think it was a party that actually was kind of party in he had brought ideological i
ethics i think there are several different things i think one is what money yo can take or can t take, for th most part, whether the reporting requirements and som of the general ethic requirements that are, you can t sit in cases, those ar statutory, and i think the bind as period i ve always thought so the real key to the distinctiveness of america i the structure of our government one part of it, of course, i the independents of th judiciary. there is a lot more. chief justice justice roberts doesn t feel like he needs a testimony. so, yesterday, he responded to the senate request with if you will forgive me for opining, a offensively dismissive letter. he attempts a half-worde attempt to gusty up his define refusal to cooperate by citing past president, except guess this all of the president he cites, include examples of past chief justices cooperating wit congressional investigations testified with court congress.