Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s $1 million donation under scrutiny in Supreme Court ethics hearing.
Republicans Question $1 Million Donation to Justice Ginsburg
Republicans seeking to stymie a Democratic bill calling for a code of ethics for the Supreme Court questioned why they haven’t looked into a mysterious $1 million donation awarded to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg shortly before her death in 2020.
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday engaged in a heated debate over a bill proposed by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) that would force a binding code of ethics upon the nine high court justices, as members of his party fume over reports of undisclosed travel and real estate deals by some current Republican-appointed justices.
Allegations Surrounding the Donation
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) said there is “one allegation that’s come to light fairly recently” surrounding a $1 million donation Ginsburg received in December 2019 from the Berggruen Institute, a private foundation founded by billionaire investor Nicolas Berggruen.
Ginsburg, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, was defended by committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL), who said the late justice “announced she was donating it to charity.”
Despite her stated intent, the charities were never disclosed and the Berggruen Institute to this day has said the “list” of recipients of her donation “is not for publication,” according to the Washington Free Beacon.
Paul Kamenar, a lawyer with the National Legal and Policy Center watchdog group, also told the outlet that the institute should have disclosed the identity of the charities picked out by Ginsburg on its financial disclosure forms.
Increasing Calls for a Code of Ethics
Calls for a binding code of ethics intensified as more news outlets published stories about perceived ethical lapses by nearly every member of the high court, including a recent Associated Press investigation that revealed Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s staffers prodded colleges to buy more of her books, which have generated at least $3.7 million in sales since she joined the court in 2009.
Republicans on Thursday sharply rebuked claims that the Supreme Court doesn’t have a code of ethics, as Lee referenced the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, which requires federal judges, including Supreme Court justices, to complete financial disclosure reports annually.
“They do in fact, have ethical standards,” Lee said. “The standards not only match up to those that we follow, in some meaningful ways, they exceed those that are binding on members of the United States Senate.”
While lower court judges are bound by the Code of Conduct for United States Judges, the Supreme Court is not, though the public information office of the high court has said previously that the justices consult the same ethics code for lower court judges when making recusal decisions.
Republican Opposition to Whitehouse’s Bill
Whitehouse’s legislation would impose a new set of ethics rules for the high court but also a process to enforce them. New standards around gifts, conflicts of interest, and transparency around recusals are the major pillars of the bill, which has little chance of passing the full Senate. The bill was pushed out of committee on Thursday by a party-line vote.
Republicans are largely united in the belief that it would be best for the justices themselves to work out an updated ethics code.
Ranking Republican committee member Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) preemptively blasted Whitehouse’s bill on Wednesday, saying it would “neuter” the Supreme Court.
“In other words, they’re gonna allow lower court judges to tell the Supreme Court how to operate when it comes to a complaint against the court. That’s a complete assault on the court as we know,” Graham said.
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