been an outrage and an abomination from the very beginning. and i think many americans across the country feel that way. but the culmination was really twofold for me. one, this was a hearing where we were discussing and marking up a bill on the absence of a judicial code of ethics for the supreme court. every other federal judge in the system has to abide by a code of ethics that supreme court does not. they think they can police themselves. we see it s a runaway majority. that s with the leaked opinion suggests. and then justice thomas had the nerve to lecture america about bullying and being unwilling to accept outcomes that we don t like. it was just too much to take at that particular point in time. and this is a judge who has ruled on a case involving his wife s communications with the white house chief of staff. it is against the law. there is one federal law saying that
of the he is the chair of the house democratic caucus and the house ucl committee and wasn t before manager for the first impeachment trial of donald trump. thank you very much for joining us tonight. and that sounded like a moment that had been building for you for a while. well that certainly is the case. i think justice clarence thomas has been an outrage and an abomination from the very beginning. and i think many americans across the country feel that way. but the culmination was really twofold for me. one, this was a hearing where we were discussing and marking up a bill on the absence of a judicial code of ethics for the supreme court. every other federal judge in the system has to abide by a code of ethics that supreme court does not. they think they can police themselves. we see it s a runaway majority. that s with the leaked opinion suggests. and then justice thomas had the nerve to lecture america about
coastal access and so she was pointing out in that case that it is very difficult for people to get ballots. so, that was certainly contentious. i guess i just wonder, what is the future of all of this? you guys have written an exhaustive piece. there are numerous interviews. you go back to ginni thomas s high school, friends and talk about how she became this person. and the ways in which her efforts have borne fruit. election fraud, the big lie, all of it. i mean, a lot of it is connected to work she has done. do you think that there is any push to have a greater separation here? some kind of code of ethics for the supreme court? when you look at a couples like this one? well, there have been pushes over the years, but they have not come to fruition. so, as it sits now, the justices still set their own course. i think what s really interesting to me and the
of any kind of the supreme court justices spouse. the spouse does not have to be a party to the case. a plaintive or defendant in the case. this, what we are seeing with clarence thomas s ruling about these communications that include communications by his wife, is a very clear violation of that law. could you imagine a clear violation of that law? lawrence, ironically, as a member of the subcommittee, i have less freedom to talk about this at the moment that non members of the committee. but i will say this. i have felt i think for many years now that there needs to be a code of ethics for the supreme court. and i think it ought to hold justices to the highest standards. and i think that congress needs to explore whether it can insist upon a code of ethics if
problem. professor goodwin, let s talk more about this transparency that you have both, you have both mentioned. i mean, chief justice roberts, just talked about congress adopting a code of ethics for the supreme court. that s not likely to go over well with the chief justice, because here s what he wrote in his year and report. the judiciary s power to manage its internal affairs insulates courts from inappropriate political influence, and it s crucial to preserving public trust in its work as a separate and coequal branch of government. what do you think, roberts is going to do here, particularly with him not being able to force thomas to do anything he doesn t want to do? well, let s be clear that the court is not above the law, nor is the court beyond the valuable. it has been, we can see overtime with rulings from the supreme court, that biases influence what the court does, whether we re talking about