Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse filed an ethics complaint against Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., alleging he violated judicial standards, including when Alito said Congress doesn’t have the power to regulate the high court after the Senate Judiciary Committee approved an ethics bill.
The Rhode Island Democrat wrote to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Monday, citing a July interview Alito gave to The Wall Street Journal as the reason for the complaint. Whitehouse said Alito’s comments “appeared in connection to my Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act, which the Senate Judiciary Committee had advanced just one week before the publication of this interview.”
Whitehouse’s ethics bill would mandate that the court adopt a code of conduct for justices and establish protocols to investigate alleged misconduct; adopt rules for disclosure of gifts, travel and income for justices and law clerks at least up to the standards in Congress; and establish procedural rules making each party or amicus disclose gifts, income or reimbursement given to justices.
