[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 75 (Wednesday, May 3, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1474-S1475]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                      Judiciary Committee Hearings

  Mr. President, you were there yesterday when the Senate Judiciary 
Committee met. I chair that committee, and we had a strong turnout of 
Democrats and Republicans to consider an issue which everyone has read 
about and heard about over the last several weeks, and that is, the 
ethical standards applied at the Highest Court in the land, the United 
States Supreme Court, across the street.
  We all read the news stories that led to this hearing and the 
questions raised about one particular Justice--but not him alone--in 
terms of gifts that they received and whether it influences their 
decisionmaking on the Court. That is basic and fundamental. If you 
think the fix is in on the Court, you don't have much respect for their 
operation.
  So the question is, what is going on in the Supreme Court? And as it 
turns out, as you well know, we have ethical standards and codes of 
conduct all across the Federal Government that apply to the Members of 
the Senate and the House and executive branch and to all of the courts 
below the Supreme Court in terms of financial disclosure and basic 
rules on what you can do and what you can't do.
  For example, there is a basic standard that is used for gifts--gifts 
for Members of the Senate and House--that puts a limit of $50 on the 
value of any gift. I have returned gifts given to me that I think 
exceeded that value, and I am sure the Presiding Officer has as well. 
That is our standard. But there is no ethics code of conduct, as best 
we can understand, when it comes to the Supreme Court, the Highest 
Court in the land. So, it turns out the Highest Court in the land has 
some of the lowest ethical standards.
  Why? Well, when this came to light in the news articles relating to 
Justice Thomas, I wrote to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John 
Roberts, and invited him to come to the hearing yesterday to tell his 
side of the story. What is the Supreme Court doing when it comes to 
ethical standards? They don't play by the same rules as all the other 
courts in the America. What are their standards?
  Well, the Chief Justice declined my invitation and sent along some 
documents to indicate what he thinks are the rules of the road for 
ethics in the Supreme Court now. They were interesting; but, 
unfortunately, they reveal that the standards of the Highest Court in 
the land are not equal to the standards of all the other Federal 
courts.
  So we had a hearing yesterday on the subject. We invited witnesses 
from the Republican side and the Democratic side to comment on the 
current state of affairs. If the Chief Justice could not appear or 
would not appear, we went forward with the investigation, which is our 
responsibility under the law.
  Now asking a Justice of the Supreme Court to come and testify before 
a congressional committee is not unusual. Ninety-two appearances have 
been made by Justices of the Supreme Court since 1960 before the 
committees of Congress. But yesterday, neither the Chief Justice nor 
any other Justice on the Supreme Court appeared before us.
  So what we found was a surprise to me. I thought there would be some 
bipartisanship in this, because in the not-too-distant past, two 
Senators on the committee had crafted an ethics bill on the disclosure 
of stock holdings, sent not only to the President to sign, but it was 
embraced as well by the Supreme Court--a bipartisan, thoughtful 
measure, for sure.
  But yesterday, I am afraid things were very partisan. First, there 
was a question as to whether or not this was an attempt to attack the 
conservative members of the Supreme Court by raising ethical questions. 
I tried to make a point, several times, that the first letter that I 
sent to the Chief Justice--

[[Page S1475]]

this Chief Justice--on the issue of a code of ethics in the Supreme 
Court, I delivered on February 13, 2012, during the Obama 
administration. So this is not some newfound interest. I have been 
working on it for years. My colleague Senator Sheldon Whitehouse also 
has dedicated a major part of his Senate career on this issue of 
ethical standards before the Supreme Court. So the notion that we just 
invented this because of unhappiness with recent court decisions just 
doesn't hold up. Many of us have been working on this issue for years--
years before any of these decisions were handed down.
  There was also an argument that the Congress has no authority to 
establish standards for the Supreme Court. As I mentioned earlier when 
we had this stock disclosure law passed last year, it was embraced by 
the Court. The Court goes through some form of financial disclosure 
based on the law passed in 1978. By and large, there are many ways that 
the Congress interfaces with the Supreme Court, not the least of which 
is its budget. So we are in constant communication with the Court and 
its operation.
  I believe that we clearly have the authority to establish ethical 
standards in law for the Supreme Court. The Republicans on our 
committee, to a person, disagree with it.
  We also had an argument made that somehow we had singled out Clarence 
Thomas, a Justice on the Supreme Court, and decided that he was going 
to be persecuted by this type of inquiry. Well, let me say, the facts 
that were disclosed about his gift-taking from a Texas billionaire were 
extraordinary. I think they were a surprise to most people.
  Justice Thomas is not denying the fact that he took hundreds of 
thousands of dollars' worth of vacations--yacht trips to Indonesia, 
private aircraft--from this Texas billionaire. He dismissed it and said 
it was personal hospitality. Personal hospitality does not include 
transportation, and, of course, this included a lot of the most 
luxurious transportation imaginable that the Justice received. So to 
say that this was acceptable conduct, it clearly was to Republicans 
yesterday, but I think most Americans want to know more about the 
relationship that would lead a Justice to take hundreds of thousands of 
dollars' worth of trips. Not to mention that this same billionaire 
bought his mother's home and allowed her to live there afterwards. So 
that was worth at least $140,000 to the benefit of the Justice's family 
again.
  There were questions raised throughout as to why we would pick on one 
conservative Justice. I will tell you, the disclosures that have come 
out since the Thomas article about the gifts he received from the Texas 
billionaire have included many members of the Court, certainly those 
who wouldn't be put in the conservative category, and questions have 
been raised.
  Questions are raised about Members of Congress all the time, and they 
should be. I know each year when I disclose my taxes and my net worth 
in detail, somebody is going to call it into question: Explain this 
item to me. Explain that item to me. That is part of the responsibility 
of public service. It is no fun, but it is part of the job. If you want 
to be a public figure, I think you owe it to the people to be assuring 
them in every step of the way that you are being honest in the way you 
discharge your duties.
  So we haven't given up. When it comes to the Senate Judiciary 
Committee and the issue of ethics, we are far from finished. We had 
good testimony yesterday from witnesses who I think give us a basis for 
moving forward in this area.
  At the end of the day, we want to make sure that people, as skeptical 
as they are of politicians, as they have every right to be, believe the 
institutions--whether it is Congress or the Supreme Court or the 
President's office--are at least credible and trustworthy. Establishing 
a fundamental ethical standard that assures that fact is absolutely 
essential, and the Senate Judiciary Committee will continue in that 
pursuit.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.