Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Right Wing Justices on Supreme Court Embroiled in MASSIVE Ethical Scandals

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

Michael Popok of Legal AF reports on the brewing ethical scandals on the US Supreme Court embroiling right wing Justices Gorsuch, Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, and Roberts, as the Chief Justice thumbs his nose at the Senate Judiciary and issues a watered down “ethical statement “ that most of them have already violated. SUPPORT THE SHOW: Shop LEGAL AF Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 American Psyop: https://pod.link/1652143101 Majority 54: https://pod.link/1309354521 Political Beatdown: https://pod.link/1669634407 Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://pod.link/1676844320 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So, Michael Popuck, legal AF, it's time to dive in to the right wing of the US Supreme Court and determine whether through transparency we have an ethical corruption problem on the court primarily by the right wing, or are they just playing by the old rules that everybody played by, and there's nothing to see here. I think it's the former. I think we have an ethical problem that light has now been shined on since the Clarence Thomas revelations, but now in broil at least five of the others on the right wing of the court. Let's start with Clarence Thomas and how we got here. The revelations the Clarence Thomas and his wife have accepted millions of dollars of

free, luxurious vacations around the world. On the back of a person on the right wing who has regular business before the court. And that's the key. Every time I'm talking about something during this hot take, I'm gonna talk about the fact that it links to a entity, a lawyer, a professor, a party who has regular business before the court.

And that's the problem. And that's the problem. And that's the ethical corruption issue. So with Clarence Thomas, Harlan Crow, real estate mogul, far right wing, entertains Ginny and Clarence Thomas on yachts, jumbo jets, and at resorts of his around the world has been doing it for over a dozen years. And that's not all. He also took off of Clarence Thomas's hands, his family homestead, and the hundreds of thousands of not millions of dollars in that transaction, as if Harling Crow couldn't buy any other house. But the one that belongs to Clarex Thomas, Harlan Crow and the entities that he has either found it or provided fundraising dollars to in the

tens of millions of dollars have regular business in front of the court. And Thomas does not recuse himself or disqualify himself from listening to these hearings, and that is the problem. Then you turn to Chief Justice Roberts. Chief Justice Roberts has a wife that has her own career. That's nothing wrong with that. And in the last five years, she's averaged about $2 million a year working for a major legal recruiter headhunting firm

that places lawyers and groups of lawyers at law firms. The problem is many of the lawyers and groups that she has placed are at law firms who regularly have business in front of the US Supreme Court regularly. And there's a reason she is placing obviously these people at these certain firms because it's a gateway to her husband, right? So we have that. Then we have Neil Gorsuch, Neil Gorsuch, who's also on the right wing. He has a cabin in the woods that nobody apparently wants, except he sells it to the head of Greenberg, Trowrig, a major firm based in Miami that regularly conducts business in front of the court. And again, Gorsuch does not recuse himself, but he had no problem with a million dollar transaction

with the head of Greenberg, Trowrig, of all the cabins in the remote part of Colorado. The Greenberg guy had to buy the one belonging to the one of the Supreme Court just says in which his firm regularly appears. Come on. And then you have Alito, who's got his own ethical dilemmas because it was revealed by Reverend Rob Shank several months ago that Alito regularly attended dinners with the founder of Hobby Lobby, the right-wing fundamentalist Christian conservative entity. And at a dinner in 2014, he talked about a decision he was writing Alito that was against

contraception rights and chose religious qualities above the right of a woman to choose. And that was in 2014 and that was revealed according to Reverend Shank at a dinner hosted by a, hosted by the Hobby Lobby people, attended by Alito. And then you've got Kavanaugh and Gorsuch and Thomas, the new reporting for the New York Times today, is who are regularly showered with gifts and other luxury items and other perks by being visiting faculty at George Mason University's Scalia law school, named after the right-wing former justice who died, Antonin Scalia. But they are wind and dine, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Thomas regularly. They are even sent to faraway places and they're allowed to choose the exotic locals that they want to teach courses

in in Italy and Iceland in London. And it's all expenses paid for them and their families. And then there's faculty members at George Mason, who regularly at that law school, Scalia law school, who regularly submit friend of the court briefs, we call them amicus briefs, amicus briefs to do business in front of the court in which their co-professor, the Supreme Court Justice, was just their buddy for the summer. So 25% of the amicus briefs that are submitted by Scalia law professors are from people who worked side by side co-teaching classes with Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Thomas.

I mean, again, business before the court. If you're doing business before the court, you would think that the justices would stay away from entanglements and appearances of impropriety that make it appear like they're being favors being carried with them to change a result. I mean, Scalia University, Scalia Law School, who nobody ever heard of 30 years ago,

25 years ago, and it was founded just in the, in the 20, 2015s or so, has rocketed up the charts from almost 50 top 50 ranking to now it's pushing top 30 ranking. And they want to have this closed relationship with the right wing justices. Now look, other justices for the Supreme Court have also guest lectured at Scalia law school. Kagan has done it. So to my or has done it, the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was very close to Scalia has also, but this incestuous closeness between the far right wing of the court and Scalia law, particularly, which is basically run by the Federalist Society by Leonard Leo, formerly a Federalist Society executive who donated $30 million in honor of Anthony Scalia, the Koch family who donated $10 million to the school, and then a 1.6 billion with a B,

billion dollar donation that was made to Leonard Leo's foundation by a little known electronics mogul in the Midwest who used to own a company called Trip Light, T-R-I-P-P-L-I-T-E, and who donated 100% of the shares of Trip Light to a Leonard Leo for him to go out and do all of his campaigning against woke principles, critical race theory, and then try to reshape the judiciary, spending now upwards of $2 billion in order to accomplish that task. And one of the funnels for the money is the Scalia Law Center at George Mason with these three law Supreme Court just sitting there with, again, business being performed in front of them. Well, why isn't this a violation of ethics rules you might be asking?

Because the Supreme Court, since time immemorial, is not subject and has refused to be subject to the cannons of judicial ethics that apply to every other federal and state judge, every federal and state judge in America is subject to the cannons of judicial-conducted ethics except the US Supreme Court. They claim, well, we're just a co-equal branch of government. We have our own article in the US Constitution, and it wouldn't be right for Congress to pass any type of regulation against us. We'll do it ourselves.

We'll self-police, but how is that going? I just outlined at least four or five potential corruption scandals that were all discovered by investigative journalism and whistleblowers. How's that going, Justice Roberts? And if we're all looking at Justice Roberts, he just gave the middle finger and Thumbnaz nose at the Senate Judiciary Committee, led by Dick Durbin, who asked for him to come in to talk about why aren't you imposing an ethical set of cannons and ethical cannon on your court. You have a court that's running rampant,

at least to the public perception, rampantly unethical. And what are you doing about it? Come talk to us about it. And instead of Chief Justice Roberts took the time to respond by telling Derbitt, we're not, I'm not doing that. There's only been two other Chief Justice that have come before the Senate or the House. And it was under very different circumstances. And I'm not coming before you because of separation of powers. But don't worry, we're very ethical because we have just signed on all nine justices to

a letter, which I'm attaching Senator Durbin, that you can read. And I'm going to read you parts of this. And that letter is a statement on ethics, a professionalism in practices that the US Supreme Court just says claim that they follow. Well, you've just heard me in this hot take run through all of the areas where people who have business in front of the court have openly tried to lobby solicit and curry favor with individual Supreme Court justices in various ways, paying headhunter fees and revenue to a wife of a Supreme Court justice, buying real estate and property from taking it off the hands of a Supreme Court justice, where nobody

else apparently wanted it, lavishing them with gifts, helping them in gorsuch's case, helping him find housing when he moved to Washington when he became a Supreme Court justice sending clerks for a low cost or almost no cost off of the Scalia law school for instance go work for Gorsuch to show how close and insesstuous that relationship is traveling and vacationing all expenses paid on luxurious luxurious trips for years with somebody who's a right wing federalist trying to reshape the court and change policy at the court. We've talked about all that. So how does Robert's a handle that?

Well, here's, you be the judge of it. Here is, I'm going to read for you now from his letter, which he claims, Justice Roberts claims solves the problem, right? Solves for the equation. Here's what he says. The justice is like other federal judges consult a wide variety of authorities on specific ethical issues. They may turn to judicial opinions and treatises and scholarly articles and the historical

practice of the court. And they may take advice from the court's legal office and from their colleagues. Note the grabber here. He doesn't say they do. He says they can. He doesn't say it. Any of the circumstances I just outlined that they're going to. He then said that in 1922, Congress instituted the judicial conference of the United States

to manage the lower federal courts and it binds the lower courts below the Supreme Court. Nevertheless, the conference has contributed to the development of a body of ethical rules and practices, which are of significant importance to the justices. Oh, is that nice? So you know that your brethren below are being ethically managed by Congress, and you think that's adorable. That's a significant importance to you. brethren below are being ethically managed by Congress. And you think that's adorable. That's a significant importance to you.

But you don't say how you use it in your daily life, how you live the gospel in your daily life. And so it goes on. It says that the canons of ethics that are applicable, not to the Supreme Court justice, but other justices are broadly worded principles that inform ethical practice, but they are not themselves rules. They are far too general to be used in that manner. Still,

the cannons, as a hall, give guidance to the federal judiciary. Okay. Now, let's keep going. They also went on that the like the lower court judges, justices at the Supreme Court engage at extra judicial activities, which includes speaking, writing, lecturing on both law-related and non-legal subjects. The law canons, the court canons, encourage public engagement by judicial officers to avoid isolation. Okay. Now, it goes on to say that a justice of the Supreme Court should consider whether doing any

of these things, working for a law firm, working for a law school, vacationing with right-wing people, having regular dinner meetings with people on the far right, selling property to them and earning a profit in return. They should consider whether any of these things would be considered by an unbiased and reasonable person to be improper in appearance of impropriety. Okay, I'm reasonable. I'm unbiased. I think it's all shows that an appearance of impropriety, the way we've described it, especially here on the hot tick, and then goes on to say that no such appearance

will be created when a justice speaks before a group educational institution, a bar group, or a not-for-profit, that does not regularly, does not regularly lobby or advocate issues that may be implicated in cases that come before the court. I've just described to you at least six examples that are obviously just as Roberts has buried his head in the sand and doesn't want to acknowledge in which entities and people who regularly

have business in front of the court are getting into bed with members of the Supreme Court in various ways, financial entanglements and otherwise to lobby them. And if they don't realize that they're being lobbied, if they don't realize that there that that favor is being curried by spending hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars towards them, then their judgment is seriously in doubt. And they should be removed from the, they should be impeached and removed from the US Supreme Court.

So that's where we are right now. We've got multiple examples and they're always on the right. It's not because I've edited out on this hot take. I don't wanna tell you about examples where Sonya Sotomayor or Briar when he was on the court or or or or a Kagan or Gatangi Brown Jackson or any of them did something bad that similar. We don't have this kind of equivalency.

There's no symmetry. It's asymmetrical. The right wing do things until they are told they can't and they have as their protector chief justice Roberts, who's never seen an ethical conflict that he hasn't explained away with a wave of his hand and a paragraph in a self-serving letter, patronizing letter sent back to the Senate Judiciary Committee. That's where we are. We'll follow all of these stories, whether it involves Thomas Gorsuch, Alito, Kavanaugh, Roberts, on hot takes just like this one that I do on the Midas Touch Network.

And I assure you that if one of the other justices from the more moderate wing, the Katanji brown Jackson's, the Elena Kagan's, the Sonya Soto Bioris, if it's discovered that they did something wrong, I'll be right back here in a hot day and I'll tell you all about it. But I got nothing to say as of right now. Every week I curate with my co-anchors

on the Legal AF podcast, a show on Wednesdays and Saturdays, where we take the top stories just like this one, and we bring it to you in an hour-long podcast format, both on YouTube, on the Midas Touch Network, and everywhere every platform you can get an audio podcast. And we're ranked regularly in the top 50 worldwide in news. And then if you like what I'm doing, give a thumbs up. It helps. It keeps this content coming directly to you on an uninterrupted, write a comment, write a review. I definitely take a look at it. It improves my presentation and my work for you. And if you like what I'm doing, I'm Michael Popok.

You could follow me on all things social media at MS Popok. This is Michael Popok for Legal AF Reporting. Hey, Midas, Mighty. Love this report. Continue the conversation by following us on Instagram. At Midas Touch to keep up with the most important news of the day. What are you waiting for?

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