A lawyer for the Supreme Court stonewalled questions about ethics issues at the court in his reply to a letter from two top congressional Democrats. Via HuffPost:
Supreme Court legal counsel Ethan Torrey replied to the inquiry from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), each in charge of oversight of the courts in their respective chambers.
The two congressional investigators had pressed Chief Justice John Roberts to answer questions about how the court handles ethical breaches after news reports revealed a pressure campaign by the Christian conservative group Faith & Action that allegedly resulted in Justice Samuel Alito revealing the outcome of his 2014 decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby prior to its release.
Torrey did not answer any of Whitehouse and Johnson’s questions regarding ongoing or potential ethics inquiries into the court’s leaked draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, or into Alito’s alleged leak of the Hobby Lobby outcome. Nor did he say which justices received gifts as part of the religious right pressure campaign.
You know what he did say?
“There is nothing to suggest that Justice Alito’s actions violated ethical standards."
Ha, ha!
The letter doesn't acknowledge the relationship with Schneck. Torrey just states that "others have denied the specific allegations." He implies that Alito has received no gifts from this group by insisting that trips, meals, lodging, wining and dining are exempt from the category.
So justices could stay in a Tuscan villa on someone else's dime, and it's all "ethical." Remember, breaking the law is different from an ethical vioation. Sure sounds like Ethan Torrey is skirting that issue.
He does the same thing with Alito the media has done all along with Trump: takes his word as fact. We remember how that worked out.
