The Ethics of Nine of the Most Powerful People in America; The Editorial Board, April 14, 2023

The Editorial Board, The New York Times ; The Ethics of Nine of the Most Powerful People in America

"An ethics office at the Supreme Court, similar to ethics committees in the House and the Senate, should be established to oversee and enforce these kinds of decisions by the justices and their employees, with public, transparent record-keeping.

Ethics rules have nothing to do with judicial partisanship. A strong set of ethical standards would apply to anyone who serves on the court, and would endure even as the ideological character of the court changes, as it may one day. The court should long ago have adopted standards of its own, but if it continues to neglect its responsibility to devise and abide by enforceable rules, Congress will have little choice but to impose its own.

In the meantime, as a sign that they take ethical lapses seriously, members of Congress need to investigate the news about Justice Thomas’s long financial relationship with Mr. Crow to determine the precise nature of the gifts and whether their secrecy violated federal ethics law. If Chief Justice Roberts doesn’t conduct a court investigation of the matter, the Senate Judiciary Committee should call on both Justice Thomas and Mr. Crow to testify. It will take effort and resolve from all branches of government to repair the tarnished reputation of the nation’s highest court, but the stakes are far too high to continue ignoring it."