by Misty Severi
Progressive New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced articles of impeachment on Wednesday against Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
The two conservatives justices have been embroiled in ethics scandals and corruption allegations over the past year, over failure to disclose luxury trips and refusals to recuse themselves from certain Supreme Court cases.
The New Yorker said the charges against Thomas also include failure to recuse himself from matters related to his wife Ginny Thomas’s financial and political interests.
“The unchecked corruption crisis on the Supreme Court has now spiraled into a Constitutional crisis threatening American democracy writ large,” the congresswoman said in a statement. “Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito’s pattern of refusal to recuse from consequential matters before the court in which they hold widely documented financial and personal entanglements constitutes a grave threat to American rule of law, the integrity of our democracy, and one of the clearest cases for which the tool of impeachment was designed.”
Allegations against Thomas center on certain luxury trips he took with family friend billionaire Harlan Crow over the years, which he omitted on disclosure forms.
Alito’s ethics scandal centers on his failure to recuse himself from cases related to January 6 and Donald Trump after controversial pro-Trump flags were spotted outside two of Alito’s homes.
“Their refusal to recuse from the specific matters and cases before the court in which their benefactors and spouses are implicated represents nothing less than a constitutional crisis,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Given the court’s demonstrated inability to preserve its own legitimate conduct, it is incumbent upon Congress to contain the threat this poses to our democracy and the hundreds of millions of Americans harmed by the crisis of corruption unfurling within the court.
“Congress has a legal, moral, and democratic obligation to impeach,” she added.
Only one other Supreme Court justice has ever been impeached. Samuel Chase was impeached by Congress in 1804 over refusing to dismiss biased jurors, but he was later acquitted by the Senate.
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Misty Severi is a reporter for Just the News.
Photo “Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez” by nrkbeta. CC BY-SA 2.0. Background Photo “US Capitol Building” by Alejandro Barba.
