Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) filed articles of impeachment against Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas.
The articles of impeachment are cosponsored by Democrat Reps. Barbara Lee (CA), Rashida Tlaib (MI), Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ), Delia Ramirez (IL), Maxwell Frost (FL), Ilhan Omar (MN), Jamaal Bowman (NY), and Jasmine Crockett (TX).
“The unchecked corruption crisis on the Supreme Court has now spiraled into a Constitutional crisis threatening American democracy writ large,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement. “Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito’s pattern of refusal to recuse from consequential matters before the court in which they hold widely documented financial and personal entanglements constitutes a grave threat to American rule of law, the integrity of our democracy, and one of the clearest cases for which the tool of impeachment was designed.”
“Justice Thomas and Alito’s repeated failure over decades to disclose that they received millions of dollars in gifts from individuals with business before the court is explicitly against the law. And their refusal to recuse from the specific matters and cases before the court in which their benefactors and spouses are implicated represents nothing less than a constitutional crisis,” she added. “These failures alone would amount to a deep transgression worthy of standard removal in any lower court, and would disqualify any nominee to the highest court from confirmation in the first place.”
The impeachment resolution against Justice Alito surrounds his “[r]efusal to recuse from cases in which he had a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party in cases before the court” and his “[f]ailure to disclose financial income, gifts and reimbursements, property interests, liabilities, and transactions, among other information.”
The impeachment resolution against Justice Thomas pertains to his “[f]ailure to disclose financial income, gifts and reimbursements, property interests, liabilities, and transactions, among other information,” his “[r]efusal to recuse from matters concerning his spouse’s legal interest in cases before the court,” and his “[r]efusal to recuse from matters involving his spouse’s financial interest in cases before the court.”
Last year, Justice Thomas’ financial disclosure revealed he had no ethics violations.
“After reviewing Justice Thomas records, I am confident there has been no willful ethics transgression, and any prior reporting errors were strictly inadvertent,” wrote Elliot Berke, a Berke Farah LLP managing partner who worked with Thomas.
“No Justice, Justice Thomas included, should be subjected to such political blood sport,” according to Berke.
