Following growing concerns about the ethics practices of the Supreme Court, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said Monday that an ethics code for the court would be a good idea.
Speaking at the University of Minnesota Law School, Barrett said, “It would be a good idea for us to do it, particularly so that we can communicate to the public exactly what it is that we are doing in a clearer way.”
She declined, however, to offer details on what she thought the code should look like.
The wide-ranging talk covered everything from the interpersonal relationships of the justices (which Barrett described as cordial, despite their disagreements on judgments) to balancing being a justice and the mother of young children.
Despite a heavy security presence, the talk was interrupted by demonstrators who protested her vote to overturn Roe v. Wade last year.
Speaking further about the concern about the ethics practices, Barrett said that “all nine justices are very committed to the highest standards of ethical conduct.”
She did not address recent revelations about Justice Clarence Thomas, who failed to report gifts and travel provided by Texas billionaire Harlan Crow, and Justice Samuel Alito’s travel on a private jet owned by hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer.
Thomas, especially, has a maelstrom of controversy, following a ProPublica report that Thomas and his wife had traveled through Indonesia aboard Crow’s 162-foot yacht, vacationed almost every summer at Crow’s luxurious New York resort, and flown on his private plane around the world on trips worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. None of those trips, along with several other gifts, were disclosed on Thomas’s annual financial disclosure forms.
