This shouldn’t be a partisan issue. Justice Sonia Sotomayor deserved criticism when her staff encouraged institutions hosting her appearances to buy her books. Ethical standards should apply equally to all nine justices.⁸
But equal rules don’t require pretending every case is equal. No other sitting justice has a publicly documented stream of benefits comparable to Thomas’s. Few have responded to legitimate questions with Alito’s level of self-confidence and indignation.
Defenders of the Court warn that outside oversight would threaten judicial independence. That gets the argument backward.
Judicial independence protects justices from being punished for unpopular rulings. It shouldn’t protect them from telling us who paid for their vacations.
Lower-court judges already operate under enforceable ethical rules. The Supreme Court shouldn’t be the one place where accountability shrinks as power grows.
The Court has no army and no police force. It depends on the rest of us believing its decisions deserve to be followed. Public trust isn’t an extra benefit. It is nearly all the Court has.
Thomas and Alito may sincerely believe that none of these gifts, friendships, financial favors or political connections affected a single vote—and they may be right.
But they can’t keep asking us to trust them while maintaining a system in which their own word is the only proof they ever have to offer.
The danger isn’t merely that Americans will lose faith in two justices.
It is that they will stop seeing the Supreme Court as a court at all—and begin seeing it as another political institution whose members have lifetime jobs, wealthy friends and no one to answer to.
Bibliography
1. • Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan and Alex Mierjeski, “Justice Samuel Alito Took Luxury Fishing Vacation With GOP Billionaire Who Later Had Cases Before the Court,” ProPublica, June 20, 2023.
2. • Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan and Alex Mierjeski, ProPublica reporting on Clarence Thomas’s luxury travel, Harlan Crow’s purchase of Thomas family property and Crow’s payment of private-school tuition, 2023.
3. • United States Senate Committee on Finance, investigation of Clarence Thomas’s luxury-motorcoach loan, October 2023.
4. • Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, reporting on Virginia Thomas’s communications with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, The Washington Post and CBS News, March 24, 2022.
5. • Trump v. Thompson , Supreme Court order, January 19, 2022.
6. • Jodi Kantor, reporting on flags displayed at Samuel Alito’s residences, The New York Times , May 2024.
7. • Supreme Court of the United States, Code of Conduct for Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States , adopted November 13, 2023.
8. • Rebecca Boone and Ed White, “Sotomayor’s Staff Prodded Colleges and Libraries to Buy Her Books,” Associated Press, July 11, 2023.