More than 40 US watchdog groups have called on the chief justice of the US supreme court, John Roberts, to force rightwing justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito to recuse themselves from cases in which their links to billionaire donors have produced conflicts of interest.
The call came in a letter sent to Roberts on Friday and was first reported by the Guardian. The letter told Roberts there was a “legitimacy crisis” at the court.
The letter, marshaled by Accountable.US, said: “We write in response to recent reports exposing serious conflicts of interest between supreme court justices and parties involved in cases the court is set to hear this term.
“These new revelations only deepen the legitimacy crisis already plaguing your supreme court. To restore the court’s integrity, at the very least, these justices must recuse themselves from cases in which they have conflicts.”
As the letter outlines, recent reporting by ProPublica, the New York Times and other outlets has tied Thomas and Alito to billionaire donors with business before the court.
The hardliners have been shown to have failed to disclose gifts including luxury travel and, in Thomas’s case, a real estate purchase benefiting his mother, payment of school fees for a family member and even a loan to buy a luxury vehicle.
Both deny wrongdoing and have rejected calls to recuse themselves.
Supreme court justices are notionally subject to the same ethics rules as all federal judges but in practice govern themselves. Senate Democrats have advanced ethics reform but with Republicans opposed it will almost certainly fail. Roberts has resisted requests to testify in Congress.
Public confidence in the US’s highest court is at historic lows but supreme court impeachments or resignations, called for by many on the left regarding Thomas in particular, remain vanishingly rare.
The court is dominated 6-3 by conservatives, after three rightwingers were installed under Donald Trump. That majority has handed down epochal rulings including Dobbs v Jackson, removing abortion rights.
On Wednesday, as the new court term loomed and in another open letter, 50 House Democrats told Thomas he should recuse himself from Loper Bright v Raimondo, a case about federal regulation which could benefit the Koch network, rightwing donors linked to the justice by ProPublica in a bombshell report last week.
Earlier this month, Alito told Senate Democrats he would not recuse himself from Moore v United States, a taxation case involving a conservative lawyer with whom the justice has close ties.
Signatories to the watchdogs’ letter to Roberts include Americans for Democratic Action, Indivisible, Patriotic Millionaires, Stand Up America and Take Back the Court Action Fund.
The letter says: “There are too many instances of cozy relationships between billionaires who routinely bring business before the court and justices themselves to ignore. Evidence of justices’ ethical violations continues to mount.
“Recently, reporting from ProPublica exposed new details of Justice Clarence Thomas’s relationship with the expansive Koch network currently urging the court to undo the Chevron doctrine.
“Additionally, Justice Samuel Alito has longstanding ties to hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, who stands to benefit mightily from the court striking down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau [in Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v Community Financial Services Association of America].
“The court will hear both of these cases this term. Therefore, we urge you to take appropriate action to ensure the conflicted justices recuse themselves from these cases and any others that involve the same players and interests.”
Roberts is a conservative but is widely seen to be concerned with the legacy of his court, sometimes voting against other rightwingers, as in Dobbs. That case was decided 5-4, not 6-3, the chief justice said by the leading court reporter Joan Biskupic, of CNN, to have “lobbied … to save the constitutional right to abortion down to the bitter end”.
In their Friday letter, the watchdog groups quoted Roberts, writing: “As you yourself wrote in 2011, judges ‘must exercise both constant vigilance and good judgment to fulfill the obligations they have all taken since the beginning of the Republic’.
“… We believe Justices Alito and Thomas have exercised neither. To ignore these glaring conflicts of interest … would be negligent – and would encourage the unethical relationships that have already severely diminished the court’s credibility and legitimacy.
“Until now, the supreme court’s ethics crisis has been defined by its refusal to establish and enforce strong standards – standards to which every other federal judge is required to adhere.
“Now is the time for action to ensure our nation’s highest court is held to the highest standards of ethics and impartiality. Our democracy depends on it.”
In a statement, Caroline Ciccone, president of Accountable.US, said: “It’s far past time that Chief Justice Roberts clean up his court – and it’s the very least the justices can do to restore some semblance of credibility and integrity.”
