John hated emails

I will have a couple of posts on Jodi Kantor and Abbie VanSickle’s inside reporting [gift link] about the Court’s internal deliberations about an ethics code. (Spoiler: the Court’s Republican members believe they entirely unaccountable.) The first thing to note is Roberts’s apparently futile attempts to shield the Court’s internal deliberations from public scrutiny, presumably to avoid further revealing the arrogance of the Court’s Republicans:

As the summer of 2023 ended, the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court began trading even-more-confidential-than-usual memos, avoiding their standard email list and instead passing paper documents in envelopes to each chambers. Faced with ethics controversies and a plunge in public trust, they were debating rules for their own conduct, according to people familiar with the process.

Weeks later, as a united front, they announced the results: the court’s first-ever ethics code. “It’s remarkable that we were able to agree unanimously,” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said in a television interview this year.

But a New York Times examination found that behind the scenes, the court had divided over whether the justices’ new rules could — or should — ever be enforced.

Justice Gorsuch was especially vocal in opposing any enforcement mechanism beyond voluntary compliance, arguing that additional measures could undermine the court. The justices’ strength was their independence, he said, and he vowed to have no part in diminishing it.

[…]

The discussions were treated with extra secrecy because they were so sensitive, according to people from the court. Instead of the usual legal issues, the justices were contending with controversy about finances and gifts from friends, and some of the ground rules of their own institution.

For years, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. had resisted efforts to hold the court to the same ethics rules that bind all other federal judges. In addition to the longstanding code, those judges can rely on a committee that dispenses advice. Any ethics complaints that arise are routed to chief circuit judges, who can convene other judges to investigate, and if necessary, take actions that range from discreet warning to censure.

At least we can be pretty confident that this leak didn’t come from Alito.

I was also darkly amused by this defense offered by family separation apologist turned government-by-Republican-judiciary apologist Sarah Isgur:

But they gave themselves no firm restrictions on gifts, travel or real estate deals. Nothing in the new rules appears aimed directly at the trips and gifts Justice Thomas accepted. The code says only that justices should uphold the dignity of the office and comply with existing gift guidelines, in separate federal rules, which make allowances for “personal hospitality.” Justice Thomas has maintained that his nondisclosure of gifts and free travel did not violate those rules.

Sarah Isgur, co-host of “Advisory Opinions,” a podcast about the court, said the justices seemed to be trying to preserve some latitude amid the constraints imposed by security threats, protests and heavy scrutiny.

“They are already so isolated,” she said. “I don’t know that people fully appreciate what the life of a Supreme Court justice is.”

The poor dears! This echoes Clarence Thomas’s defense of taking millions of dollars in unreported emoluments from interested parties — how can a lawyer expect to get by on a piddling $300K a year plus lecture fees plus “teaching” salaries plus book sales. Why don’t you try living on that kind of subsistence wage before you cast stones.

Leaving aside that this is absurd and insulting on its face, if you don’t like the compensation or the alleged social isolation, if having perhaps the highest ratio of power to accountability of any public official in the United States isn’t enough, here’s a solution: quit! At full salary for the rest of your life! I guarantee you that other people will gladly accept this job, and you can even time your retirement to insure that your replacement will cast the same votes. A very highly compensated private sector sinecure awaits. But if this is a job that you’re determined to hold onto for as long as possible, then suck it up and shut up. To our ruling elites, though, the idea of having to sacrifice anything, no matter how much you’re already getting, is unacceptable.