Senate Democrat urges Roberts to pressure Alito, Thomas on recusals

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts in a letter Thursday to exert his powers to pressure Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas to recuse themselves from cases related to former President Trump.

“Your position gives you substantial moral and persuasive authority to establish norms of behavior and to hold your colleagues to them,” the senator wrote. “I urge you to use that authority to convince Justices Thomas and Alito to recuse themselves in these cases — critical to our democracy and the rule of law — where their ‘impartiality might reasonably be questioned'”

Blumenthal wrote his missive a day after Alito refused to recuse himself from Trump-related cases after Senate Democrats raised concerns about his impartiality due to the display of two flags associated with the Jan. 6, 2021, “Stop the Steal” movement at his Virginia home and New Jersey beach house.

Alito in a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Wednesday argued the flag incidents failed to meet the standard for disqualification in the judicial code of conduct and claimed he had “nothing whatsoever to do” with flying an upside-down flag at his property after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

And he said he had “no involvement in the decision” to fly an “Appeal to Heaven” flag at his beach house, informing Durbin that his wife was the person who hoisted both controversial displays.

“My wife is fond of flying flags,” he said. “I am not.”

Blumenthal also cited Thomas’s refusal to recuse himself from Trump-related cases despite his wife Ginni’s pro-Trump political activism and support for efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

“Justice Thomas did not recuse,” the senator noted. “He did not explain his decision. And the court’s ethical shortcomings have only grown.”

Blumenthal says Roberts should compel Alito and Roberts to recuse themselves from the cases by using his authority to assign the writing of draft opinions and allot justices to circuit court work.

“I urge you not to assign opinions or circuit justiceships to Justices Alito and Thomas if they fail to recuse themselves from further participation in United States v. Trump and other cases relating to January 6th and the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement,” Blumenthal wrote.

He warned that allowing them to preside over cases in which many Democrats fear they are biased in favor of Trump and his allies who attempted to block the peaceful transfer of power in January 2021 would further erode the court’s credibility.

“When a justice openly flies flags closely associated with one political candidate, then fails to recuse himself once that candidate becomes a litigant, it contributes to the court’s plummeting public trust,” Blumenthal wrote.

“And each time you ask that justice to author and opinion of the court — especially in a case about the allocation of electoral power — you sanction that justice’s ethical lapses,” he argued. “Not merely a bystander to your colleagues’ misbehavior, you become a validator of their conduct.”