'So Profoundly Unserious': Mitch McConnell Hammers Dems For Demanding Alito Recusal From Trump Case

6 months ago

During remarks on the Senate floor, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) spoke about Democratic Senators demanding Justice Alito recuse himself from Trump's Supreme Court case.

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Transcript

00:00 The Supreme Court term is about to end, which means it's time for Democrats and

00:09 their media allies to bully and harass the justices. The most recent example of

00:18 this is the visible attack leveled against Justice Alito for his wife's

00:24 flags. I have nothing to say about those attacks themselves because they're so

00:32 profoundly unserious, but I do have an observation about how some of the

00:37 attacks have been leveled. Three of our colleagues have taken it upon themselves

00:47 to write to the Chief Justice and demand Justice Alito recusal in cases. One went

00:58 so far as to tell the Chief that he should strip Justices Alito and Thomas

01:02 of their ability to write majority opinions unless they recuse from the

01:08 causes liberals don't want them hearing.

01:14 This goes beyond the standard disgraceful bullying my Democratic

01:20 colleagues have perfected. Recusal is a judicial act. These senators are telling

01:28 the Chief Justice privately to change the course of pending litigation. This is

01:36 known as ex parte communication and it is frowned upon by the ABA's model code

01:42 of judicial conduct. This matters because at least two of these colleagues of

01:50 ours, the junior senator from Rhode Island and the senior senator from

01:53 Connecticut, seem to be members of the Supreme Court Bar. If so, they are

02:00 therefore potentially engaging in unethical professional conduct before

02:06 the court. They may be under the mistaken impression that their persistent

02:14 attempts to threaten the federal courts are a permissible use of their

02:20 legislative office, but they are offices of the court and bound by a different

02:27 set of rules than a mere senator. These rules provide for discipline against

02:32 those who engage in conduct unbecoming an officer of the court. I might suggest

02:40 to our colleagues that unethical ex parte communications, seeking to change

02:46 the course of pending litigation, is such conduct and that the court should take

02:53 any remedial action it feels to be appropriate. The legal profession is in

03:00 distress. Unethical behavior by attorneys serving political causes

03:08 unfortunately knows no party or faction. It is up to the legal profession to

03:16 police itself and in the end this means the courts, including the Supreme Court,

03:22 must police their officers. We don't need to appeal to heaven to fix this problem,

03:31 just to the Supreme Court's power to police the ethical practice of law among

03:37 the members of the bar.

'So Profoundly Unserious': Mitch McConnell Hammers Dems For Demanding Alito Recusal From Trump Case

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