I've grown completely numb to the daily reporting on alleged ethical problems at the Supreme Court. All of these pieces follow a similar pattern. (1) Reporter spends an inordinate amount of time poring over mountains of publicly-available documents. (2) Reporter finds something that was not disclosed, or not fully-disclosed. (3) Reporter raises allegation that the failure to fully disclose that item is a problem, without actually identifying what that problem is. (4) Reporter interviews left-wing ethics groups who insist that full disclosure is necessary. (5) Reporter interviews the same cadre of law professors, who maintain that even though no actual rule was violated, the Justice should abide by some unwritten, higher standard. (6) Reporter publishes piece, which is widely shared on social media, but not actually read. (7) Sober analysis later reveals that the Justice either complied with the rules or made a good-faith mistake that will promptly be corrected. I'll have much more to say about this journalistic paint-by-numbers in a future ABA Journal column. Sunlight is a good disinfectant; too much heat will burn everything down.
But you know what the press has largely forgotten about? An actual judicial crisis: how the draft Dobbs opinion leaked to the press. The media should devote as much attention to the leak, as it fixates on who Amy Coney Barrett hosted a baby shower for 20 years ago.
And amidst these attacks, the Supreme Court remains rudderless. We know that the Chef Justice is unable, or unwilling to defend his Court beyond self-serving bromides about the Court as an "institution." If he thought his shoddy letter to the Senate would quell controversy, he was very wrong. The statement the Chief organized raised more questions than it answered. Fortunately, at least one member of the Court is willing to defend the Court against the never-ending barrage of attacks: Justice Samuel Alito. If Justice Thomas is the intellectual leader of the Court, Justice Alito is its heart.
