(PartiallyPolitics.com) – In a New York Times interview published Wednesday, Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin (Maryland) argued the Justice Department could force the recusal of Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas in cases relating to the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Raskin noted that everyone had assumed “nothing can be done” regarding the “recusal situation” given the country’s highest court had, as he described, “the lowest ethical standards,” pointing to its non-binding ethics code and lack of personal reflection.
He added that it was up to each Justice whether or not they’d “be impartial.”
The Maryland Democrat then noted that Thomas and Alito have the option to “recuse themselves,” but begging the pair to “do the right thing” overlooks a “far more effective course of action.”
He noted that the Department of Justice and the U.S. District of Columbia could petition the other Justices on the bench to “require” Justices Thomas and Alito “recuse themselves… as a matter of law” not of grace.
Thomas and Alito have received a recent barrage of calls to recuse themselves from cases centered around the January 6 attack because of controversies about their purported involvement in the “Stop the Steal” movement — Alito because he flew the flag over his house in a method relating to the movement and Thomas because his wife was involved in the movement.
Raskin claimed the Department of Justice and Attorney General Merrick Garland could “invoke two powerful textual authorities” referencing the Constitution, highlighting due process and the “statute mandating judicial disqualification for questionable impartiality.”
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