Ranking Member Raskin Rebukes Supreme Court’s Approach to Ethics: Rules for Thee But Not for Me
Washington, D.C. (December 18, 2024)—Today, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability, issued the following statement after reporting revealed that U.S. District Judge Michael Ponsor was subjected to an ethics inquiry for publishing an essay in the New York Times calling into question Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s decision to fly an upside-down American flag outside his home—an apparent show of support for the “Stop the Steal” movement. The investigation was based on a complaint filed by Mike Davis, an activist and Trump-ally who is the founder of an organization that advocates for conservative judges:
“When Justice Alito flew an upside-down flag in one of his front yards and an ‘Appeal to Heaven’ flag in another, in a plain show of support for the January 6 ‘Stop the Steal’ movement, the spectacle plainly diminished the public’s confidence in the integrity of the judiciary.
"But it’s not Justice Alito who has been admonished for causing this dramatic erosion of public trust in the Court.
"Instead, it is a Senior Judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, Michael Ponsor, who has been the subject of an ethics inquiry for having the temerity to call Justice Alito’s political flag displays ‘improper’ and pointing out that, of the hundreds of judges he has known, he could not think of a single judge in the country who ‘has engaged or would engage in conduct like that.’
“Under the Roberts Court’s ‘rules for thee and not for me’ approach to judicial ethics, the Court’s far-right justices are free not only to ignore the ethics rules that bind every other judge and to depart from the truth on their mandatory disclosure forms. They may now enjoy immunity from criticism by their outraged colleagues who dare to hold them to account for their clear trespasses on judicial objectivity and neutrality.”
In November 2023, Ranking Member Raskin led Committee Democrats in a letter to Chairman Comer urging him to investigate the ethics crisis in the Supreme Court amid reports of conservative Justices receiving undisclosed lavish gifts from wealthy individuals with business before the Court.
On June 11, 2024, Ranking Member Raskin and Vice Ranking Member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez led Committee Democrats in examining the private and public corruption of the Supreme Court in a roundtable titled “High Court, Low Standards, and Dark Money: Flagging a Supreme Ethics Crisis in America.”
On June 20, 2024, Ranking Member Raskin and Vice Ranking Member Ocasio-Cortez sent a letter to Chief Justice Roberts calling on him to make clear what steps, if any, he is taking to investigate allegations of serious ethical misconduct by conservative Justices on the Supreme Court.
On October 4, 2024, Ranking Member Raskin and Vice Ranking Member Ocasio-Cortez penned a letter to Chief Justice Roberts, demanding an explanation for his “highly unusual” decision to replace Alito as the as the author of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Fischer v. United States, a case involving the January 6 insurrection, just days after the public learned that he repeatedly flew flags and banners supportive of the January 6 insurrectionists while allowing him to remain on the case.