The Senate Judiciary Committee chair has called on Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, whose home reportedly displayed an upside-down US flag shortly after the attack on the Capitol, to recuse himself from all cases concerning the 2020 election and Jan. 6 riot. "The Court is in an ethical crisis of its own making, and Justice Alito and the rest of the Court should be doing everything in their power to regain public trust," Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin said Friday, contending that displaying the flag, "a symbol of the so-called 'Stop the Steal' movement, clearly creates the appearance of bias." He said Alito also should recuse himself from Donald Trump's immunity case now pending before the court, the Hill reports.
Similar calls for Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from the cases because his wife, Virginia, worked to overturn the 2020 election results had no effect. Durbin has tried to put a new ethics code for the court in place; as of now, the justices decide on their own whether to recuse themselves over potential conflicts of interest. The court has countered that Congress isn't the boss of it. Charles Geyh, a professor at Indiana University's law school, said the likelihood of Alito recusing himself over this "is at or near zero," per NBC News. Durbin said the flap is an example of why Congress should pass legislation to set up a code of conduct for the justices. "Supreme Court justices should be held to the highest ethical standards, not the lowest," he said. (More Samuel A. Alito stories.)
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