Whitehouse Disappointed by Judiciary’s Decision to Ignore Ethics Law and Refuse to Consider Referring Justice Thomas’s Ethical Lapses to Justice Department

Washington, DC - U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, issued the following statement after the Judicial Conference of the United States ignored its obligation under the Ethics in Government Act to consider referring Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas's ethical lapses to the Department of Justice:

"The Judicial Conference response contains a number of inconsistencies and strange claims, and ultimately doesn't address the only real question the Judicial Conference should've been focused on for the nearly two years it spent on this matter: Is there reasonable cause to believe that Justice Thomas willfully broke the disclosure law? By all appearances, the judicial branch is evading a clear statutory duty to hold a Supreme Court justice accountable for ethics violations."

The Ethics in Government Act of 1978 requires certain government officials, including judges and Supreme Court justices, to complete financial disclosures each year and mandates that the Judicial Conference refer to the Department of Justice any judge or justice the Conference has reasonable cause to believe has willfully violated the Act. The Act includes limited exceptions to these disclosures, and allows each branch to define those exemptions more completely. Supreme Court practice for years followed financial disclosure requirements much weaker than other branches of government, especially with regard to the disclosure exemption for "personal hospitality." Justices of the Supreme Court had accepted undisclosed "personal hospitality" on private jets, on private yachts, and at resorts after arranging "personal" invitations from the resort owner, and did not disclose it as required by law.

Whitehouse has long been the Senate's leading voice for improving transparency and accountability at the Supreme Court, conducting extensive oversight of the judiciary's interpretation of the ethics laws and their application to the Supreme Court. Whitehouse also has delivered a series of speeches on the Senate floor about the special-interest scheme to remake the judicial branch.

Whitehouse is the author of the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act, which was voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2023. The bill would require Supreme Court justices to adopt a code of conduct, create a mechanism to investigate and address alleged violations of the code of conduct and other laws, improve disclosure and transparency when a justice has a connection to a party or amicus before the Court, and require justices to explain their recusal decisions to the public. The Senator has also led legislation to create term limits at the Court.