Chief Justice John Roberts is practically begging for a subpoena. He must think that Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., won’t push for one. He may be right.
But that doesn’t make Roberts’ refusal to testify to the committee any less pathetic. The chief justice sent Durbin a letter on Tuesday declining the senator’s invitation to testify May 2 about the court’s ethical issues. The invitation was prompted by ProPublica’s reporting on Justice Clarence Thomas’ undisclosed gifts from GOP megadonor Harlan Crow, which raised questions of whether Thomas broke the law and highlighted how the justices aren’t bound by an ethics code like their lower-court colleagues are.
Thomas said after the reporting emerged that he didn’t think he had to disclose what he characterized as personal hospitality from a longtime friend who didn’t have business before the court, though reporting from Bloomberg on Monday revealed that Crow did have business before the court in at least one case. Yet, Durbin didn’t even invite Thomas to testify because he thought that Thomas would ignore the invitation (yes, he actually said that Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press”). Durbin said that instead it would be better for Roberts to testify, which didn’t make sense as an explanation then, but now even Roberts has rejected Durbin’s half-measure.
So let’s examine Roberts’ letter to Durbin, which doesn’t make sense, either. In it, Roberts said that he “must” decline Durbin’s invitation. When a lawyer or judge (or the highest judge in the land) uses such a strong word, one would think that the rest of the letter would justify that strong conclusion. It does not.
Roberts noted that it’s “exceedingly rare” for chief justices to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, citing “separation of powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence.” He said that there were only two prior instances of chief justices testifying to the…
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