As soon as I heard yesterday that SCOTUS had released a fake "code of ethics," ...
...I told my colleagues at C&L, "I hope Joy-Ann Reid is gonna have Elie Mystal on this afternoon."
Got my wish.
JOY ANN REID, HOST: Further proof that sunlight is the best disintectant, earlier today the Supreme Court announced for the first time in its 200-plus year history, it has adopted a code of ethics... well, sort of. The fourteen-page document broadly lays out five canons of conduct on issues such as when justices should recuse themselves and what kind of outside activities they can engage in. However, it fails to mention how it will be enforced or who will enforce it. This is a clear effort by the high court to short-circuit an increasing pressure campaign from Senate Democrats to impose a binding ethics code for justices, especially after reports from ProPublica that Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito did not disclose free trips from wealthy right-wing donors. That was turned up last week when the Senate Judiciary Committee debated issuing subpoenas to one of those donors, Harlan Crow, as well as Leonard Leo. Joining me is Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation. How seriously should we take this ethics code? Let me read a little before I let you answer that. It says here, the absence of a code, however, has led in recent years to the misunderstanding that the justices of the court, unlike all other justices in the country, regard themselves unrestricted by the ethics rules.
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