House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is targeting conservative Supreme Court justices, describing some of them as “MAGA extremists.”
This comes after a recent controversy involving Justice Samuel Alito arose when media outlets reported that he flew two flags associated with far-right “Stop the Steal” movements outside two of his houses.
Following that information being release, Jeffries — the top Democrat in the House — demanded that Alito recuse himself from any case before the Supreme Court that relates to the Capitol attack from January 6 of 2021.
During a recent press briefing in the Capitol building, Jeffries said of Alito:
“He definitely needs to recuse himself from any matter pending before the United States Supreme Court that has to do with the January 6 violent insurrection. He should have no part of it.”
Many other leading Democrats have said the same thing.
After The New York Times reported on the two conservative flags being flown outside Alito’s homes, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Alito essentially disqualified himself from those cases.
The first time the flag was flown happened right after the 2020 presidential election. The flag in question was an upside-down American flag, which was flown outside his home in Alexandria, Virginia.
For his part, Alito said his wife flew the flag as part of a dispute they were having with one of their neighbors.
The second time it happened was last summer, when an “Appeal to Heaven” flag was flown outside his family’s vacation home in New Jersey. Alito hasn’t commented on that yet.
Former President Donald Trump’s supporters have frequently flown both of those flags, and both were carried by people who attended the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the Capitol insurrection in 2021.
Jeffries said that both Justice Clarence Thomas and Alito have shown they have political bias, and that has thus far undermined the high court’s image — which is supposed to be a bastion of non-partisan objectivity.
As Jeffries said:
“Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas are totally out of control. These individuals continue to detonate the credibility of the United States Supreme Court.”
The House leader added that if the Democrats are able to flip the House and retain control of the Senate following November’s elections, they will immediately work to adopt tougher Supreme Court oversight.
That eventually could result in a new code of ethics that would govern how the justices act when they’re not in the courtroom.
As the leader said:
“If the Supreme Court does not get its act under control, you can be confident that Democrats in the House of Representatives, partnering with Democrats in the United States Senate, will act the first opportunity we have to engage in thorough oversight and the considering of imposing an ethical code of conduct on Supreme Court justices.”
Alito has already said that he will not be recusing himself from any of the cases in question.
