Justice Alito rejects Senate Democrats’ call to step aside from an upcoming Supreme Court case

AP  :
Justice Samuel Alito on Friday rejected demands from Senate Democrats that he step aside from an upcoming Supreme Court case because of his interactions with one of the lawyers, in a fresh demonstration of tensions over ethical issues.

Alito attached an unusual statement to an otherwise routine list of orders from the court.

“There is no valid reason for my recusal in this case,” Alito wrote in a four-page statement.

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have been highly critical of Alito and the rest of the court for failing to adopt an ethics code, following reports of undisclosed paid trips taken by Justice Clarence Thomas and, on one occasion, by Alito.

The committee approved an ethics code for the court on a party-line vote, though it is unlikely to become law.

Last month, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and other Democrats on the committee sent a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts calling on Alito to not participate in a tax case that will be argued in the late fall.

Supreme Court reinstates regulation of ghost guns, firearms without serial numbers Senate committee approves legislation to impose stronger ethics standards on Supreme Court justices The Democrats complained that Alito himself had cast doubt on his ability to judge the case fairly because he sat for four hours of Wall Street Journal opinion page interviews with an editor at the newspaper and David Rivkin, one of the lawyers for the couple suing over a tax bill.

Rivkin also represents Leonard Leo, the onetime leader of the conservative legal group The Federalist Society, in his dealings with the Senate Democrats, who want details of Leo’s involvement with the justices.

Leo helped arrange a private trip Alito took to Alaska in 2008.