As the controversies surrounding Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito intensified, and the far-right jurist’s reputation as a biased ideologue deepened, dozens of congressional Democrats called on Alito to recuse himself in cases related to Donald Trump and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Those calls, however, were rooted in a dubious concept: The justice would assess his impartiality, his actions, and his record, and conclude that the responsible move would be to allow his colleagues to hear these cases without him. (Given the size of the high court’s dominant conversative majority, he wouldn’t even have to worry about his recusal affecting the outcomes.)
But Alito, who’s long appeared indifferent to his reputation, instead decided to blow off Democratic appeals. NBC News reported:
In separate letters to Democratic senators and Democratic House members, the Supreme Court conservative added that, as far as he’s concerned, “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 no recusal was warranted in response to his latest controversies.
Alito also blamed his spouse for the flag incidents. “My wife is fond of flying flags,” he wrote to lawmakers. “I am not.”
All of this, of course, raises questions anew about the value of the court’s thin ethics code. Embroiled in controversy, Alito assessed himself and effectively declared, “Nope, I’m good.”
There was also a degree of irony to the broader circumstances: To hear the justice tell it, his wife is an independent private American citizen, and Alito respects her right to make her own decisions and take her own actions. This from the jurist who wrote the ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.
But I was also interested in the reactions to Alito’s conclusions.
Republicans in the House and Senate, right on cue, celebrated, as congressional Democrats complained once again about Alito’s dubious judgment.
Trump, meanwhile, published a related item to his social media platform, praising the justice for showing “INTELLIGENCE, COURAGE, and ‘GUTS.’ … All U.S. Judges, Justices, and Leaders should have such GRIT.”
In other words, amid questions about Alito being overly aligned with Trump and his allies, the justice found himself being showered with praise from Trump and his allies.
For his part, Rep. Jamie Raskin, who taught constitutional law before becoming a prominent congressman, wrote an interesting opinion piece for The New York Times about the ongoing ordeal.
“The U.S. Department of Justice — including the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, an appointed U.S. special counsel and the solicitor general, all of whom were involved in different ways in the criminal prosecutions underlying these cases and are opposing Mr. Trump’s constitutional and statutory claims — can petition the other seven justices to require Justices Alito and Thomas to recuse themselves not as a matter of grace but as a matter of law,” the Maryland Democrat wrote.
Is the Justice Department prepared to take such a step? Watch this space.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
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