Senate Democrats Back Off On Supreme Court Subpoenas After GOP Calls Bluff
Democrats’ Efforts to Undermine the Supreme Court Face Setback
Democrats’ quest to undermine the Supreme Court slowed on Thursday when the Senate Judiciary Committee tabled a vote to subpoena private citizens Harlan Crow and Leonard Leo over their friendships with Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
Chairman Dick Durbin said he backed off the vote because the committee “ran out of time” to evaluate an avalanche of amendments that he said Democrats did not know about until the night before the committee meeting.
Ranking Member Lindsey Graham, after calling the conduct of the Democrat-led committee “a complete sh-t show,” warned Durbin that Republicans filed “a bunch of amendments” to hamper Democrats’ intimidation campaign.
The 88 amendments aim to redirect the committee’s focus from executing Democrats’ public vendetta against Republican-nominated justices, which Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer promised in 2020, to legitimate oversight that is currently blocked by the Senate’s Democrat majority.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn confirmed to the committee that she filed several of the amendments including one to subpoena Justice Sotomayor’s staff over her book-selling scandal.
Blackburn noted that “since we’re in the business of issuing subpoenas,” Republicans like her plan to subpoena Jeffrey Epstein’s estate over his flight logs, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra to explain how he lost track of 85,000 migrant children, the Department of Justice over its decision to terminate a program aimed at rooting out Chinese spies in the U.S., Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s staff over his targeting of former President Donald Trump, and the DOJ and Federal Trade Commission over their investigation of Elon Musk.
“Our Supreme Court justices, especially Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, they have been subjected to threats on their lives. Their families have been subjected to threats on their lives. And yet, this is what you and Senator Whitehouse are choosing to focus on, is a discrediting of the court,” Blackburn said. “We know what this is about. We should be talking about protections for the court.”
When Durbin adjourned the committee, he vowed to “absolutely” revive the subpoena fight but did not specify when he plans to do it.
Thomas and Alito’s friendships with wealthy men are not illegal, nor did their so-called “undisclosed lavish gifts and trips” amount to any of the ethics violations outlined in the Supreme Court’s code of conduct at the time they were received. Yet, Durbin repeatedly claimed that the Supreme Court “is in an ethical crisis of its own making.”
The leftist senators and their dark-money allies leading the charge against Thomas and Alito claim the Supreme Court has a “history of ethical challenges” that require congressionally mandated, compulsory regulation. Their efforts are aided by a litany of coordinated hit pieces on Thomas, Alito, and Justice Neil Gorsuch by ProPublica (which attacks conservatives 23 times more often than Democrats), Politico, and other corporate media outlets.
Durbin claimed during Thursday’s meeting that “the committee has not engaged in a vendetta against conservatives” and “is not seeking the subpoena authorization to score political points.”
What he did not mention is that Democrats like he and Sheldon Whitehouse only became interested in the “ethics” of SCOTUS because it was politically and personally strategic for their party to target the conservative-controlled court. He also did not acknowledge that Democrat-nominated justices have a whole host of decades-old violations that are worth probing but have been readily ignored by the senators and the media.
During a committee hearing on the subpoenas last week, Republicans called out Democrats’ partisan scheming for being a transparent effort to undermine and delegitimize the Supreme Court.
Sen. Chuck Grassley warned that the Supreme Court “is an independent branch of government NOT a political punching bag.”
Sen. Tom Cotton, similarly, accused Democrats of targeting the court simply “because you don’t like the way they rule.”
Sen. Ted Cruz diagnosed the smear campaign as a pet project of “left-wing billionaires” who endorse a “full on assault on our Constitution.”
“Democrats hate our system of separation of powers, and they are willing to burn down the Supreme Court to accomplish their political goals,” Cruz said.
What is the motive behind the Democrats’ sudden concern for ethics and transparency when it conveniently aligns with their political agenda?
Ally advantageous for them to do so. Their sudden concern for ethics conveniently coincided with the appointment of conservative justices to the Supreme Court, which upset their liberal agenda.
The Democrats’ efforts to undermine the Supreme Court are part of a larger strategy to consolidate their power and push through their agenda, regardless of what the American people want or what the Constitution allows. They are using any means necessary to achieve their goals, including weaponizing the committee process to intimidate and harass private citizens who have connections to conservative justices.
The decision to table the vote to subpoena Harlan Crow and Leonard Leo is a small setback for the Democrats, but it does not mean that their efforts are over. Chairman Durbin has made it clear that he plans to revive the subpoena fight in the future.
It is important to understand the real motive behind the Democrats’ actions. They claim to be concerned about ethics and transparency, but their true goal is to discredit and delegitimize the Supreme Court in order to advance their own political agenda. They are willing to trample on the rights and reputations of innocent individuals to achieve their goals.
The Republican amendments filed by Senator Marsha Blackburn and others seek to redirect the committee’s focus towards legitimate oversight and away from the Democrats’ partisan vendetta. These amendments highlight the hypocrisy of the Democrats and their selective outrage. If they are truly concerned about ethics and transparency, they should be willing to investigate a wide range of issues, not just those that conveniently align with their political agenda.
The attacks on conservative justices and the Supreme Court as a whole are unwarranted and dangerous. Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett have dedicated their careers to upholding the Constitution and interpreting the law. They deserve our respect and support, not baseless accusations and attempts to undermine their integrity.
The Democrats’ campaign against the Supreme Court is a direct threat to the independence of our judiciary and the rule of law. They are using their power in Congress to intimidate and bully private citizens, all in an effort to weaken the conservative majority on the Court.
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