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'Deeply Anti-American': Trump Calls for Jailing Supreme Court Critics
"This Trump fellow is an obvious, unrepentant fascist without the slightest understanding of what the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution demands and requires."
Sep 24, 2024
U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is under fire this week for suggesting that critics of federal judges, including justices on the nation's top court, should be thrown in jail.
During a Monday night campaign rally in Pennsylvania, the former president continued his trend of bragging about appointing three of the U.S. Supreme Court justices who ended nationwide abortion rights by overturning Roe v. Wade. He also praised the "brilliant" right-wingers for having the "courage" to issue the June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision.
"They were very brave, the Supreme Court. Very brave. And they take a lot of hits because of it," Trump told the crowd.
"It should be illegal, what happens. You know, you have these guys like playing the ref, like the great Bobby Knight," he continued, referencing a late college basketball coach. "These people should be put in jail, the way they talk about our judges and our justices, trying to get them to sway their vote, sway their decision."
Demand Justice managing director Maggie Jo Buchanan on Tuesday tied Trump's new comments to his past remarks.
"In 2016, Donald Trump said women should be punished if they have an abortion. Now, he says women should be jailed for speaking out when their rights have been taken away," Buchanan said in a statement. "Attempting to stoke fear among those who are simply exercising their First Amendment rights is deeply anti-American."
The campaign of the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, shared a clip of Trump's comments on social media.
"You know, I'm going to lean forward a bit on my skis and just suggest, hear me out on this, that this Trump fellow is an obvious, unrepentant fascist without the slightest understanding of what the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution demands and requires of every citizen, let alone the president," said journalist David Simon.
Congressman Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) responded with a message for Trump, saying: "The extreme Supreme Court Justices you nominated are corrupt, radical, and ethically compromised. They lied to the Senate and the American people about their actual views on Roe v. Wade. Take your attacks on free speech and shove it."
Pointing to a more recent ruling from the country's deeply unpopular top court, writer and photographer Jason Karsh said, "I know we're sort of numb to Trump openly musing about putting anybody who disagrees with him or speaks out about him in jail, but he is running for president and this conservative SCOTUS did give him complete immunity for any crimes he commits while in office."
Meanwhile, Harvard University professor Maya Sen noted that "Trump himself has made so many attacks on judges and justices that the Brennan Center even released a report on it."
Some of the ex-president's attacks on the judicial system have pertained to his various ongoing legal issues, some of which relate to his attempts to reverse his 2020 loss, which included inciting a violent mob to attack the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Although Trump has campaigned on his role in reversing Roe, he has also tried to distance himself from the GOP's most extreme attacks on reproductive freedom and downplay how important abortion rights are to many voters—which he did again on Monday.
Responding to Trump's rally remarks, Harris campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said late Monday that "the issue of reproductive freedom certainly 'pertains' to women all across this country, especially as we learn women are losing their lives under Donald Trump's extreme abortion bans."
"Trump keeps trying to tell women that our health, our freedoms, and our lives don't matter," she continued. "He tries to tell us what to think and what we care about. Women know better—and we will not be silenced, dismissed, ignored or treated like we're stupid. We will vote like our lives depend on it this November, and we'll elect a leader who fights for us: Vice President Kamala Harris."
Trump's Monday comments followed his Friday night post on social media that if he is elected in November, "WOMEN WILL BE HAPPY, HEALTHY, CONFIDENT AND FREE! YOU WILL NO LONGER BE THINKING ABOUT ABORTION."
That claim came in the wake of reporting that tied Georgia's post-Dobbs abortion ban to the deaths of at least two women. Speaking in Atlanta on Friday, Harris declared that "this is a healthcare crisis and Donald Trump is the architect of this crisis."
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'Another Day, Another Undisclosed Trip Clarence Thomas Took on a Billionaire's Private Jet': Wyden
"The Supreme Court should be the gold standard for judicial ethics," said one reform advocate, "yet billionaires like Harlan Crow are buying the loyalty of justices one private jet flight at a time."
Aug 05, 2024
New reporting on Monday that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failed to report even more private travel gifted by a Republican mega-donor sparked renewed calls for reforms including a binding code of ethics for members of the nation's highest court.
The New York Timesreported that Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) detailed in a letter to Michael Bopp, an attorney representing billionaire businessman Harlan Crow, how Thomas "has never disclosed" round-trip travel by Thomas and his wife, conservative activist Virginia Thomas, between Hawaii and New Zealand in November 2010 on Crow's private jet.
"Furthermore, it was revealed just a few weeks ago that Justice Thomas enjoyed complimentary use of private jets paid for by Mr. Crow on 17 different occasions since 2016, with nine of those flights coming in the last three years," Wyden wrote.
"While Justice Thomas has only recently updated his financial disclosures to include an eight-day voyage aboard the Michaela Rose in Indonesia in 2019, Justice Thomas still has not disclosed other trips on the Michaela Rose," the senator continued, referring to Crow's yacht. "Public reports show evidence that Justice Thomas was a passenger aboard the Michaela Rose in Greece, New Zealand, and elsewhere."
Thomas' 2023 disclosure, which was published in June, includes food and lodging during 2019 trips to Bali and Bohemian Grove—a secretive, men-only retreat in Sonoma County, California—paid for by Crow. The trips and other gifts for Thomas—including yacht excursions, flights on private jets, and private school tuition for the justice's grandnephew—were first revealed by ProPublica last year. Thomas claimed key disclosures were "inadvertently omitted at the time of filing."
Also in June, the advocacy group Fix the Court published a database listing 546 total gifts valued at over $4.7 million given to 18 current and former justices mostly between 2004 and 2023, as identified by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The database also lists "likely" gifts received by the justices and their estimated values, bringing the grand total to 672 gifts valued at nearly $6.6 million.
Thomas led the pack with 193 FTC-identified gifts collectively valued at over $4 million. Of these, he listed only 27 in financial disclosure reports.
Wyden wrote:
I seek to understand the means and scale of Mr. Crow's undisclosed largesse to Justice Thomas to inform several pieces of legislation that the committee is drafting, including but not limited to: reforms to the tax code concerning filing requirements for gift tax returns, audit requirements for Supreme Court justices, and comprehensive ethics reform that would strengthen the Ethics in Government Act and other laws related to the disclosure of complimentary private jet and yacht travel by Supreme Court justices...
Unfortunately, your prior responses to the committee have done nothing to address concerns that personal trips aboard Mr. Crow's superyacht and private jets for lavish vacations, including complimentary private jet travel for Justice Thomas, may have been used to help Mr. Crow avoid or evade paying federal taxes. This is not a particularly complicated matter. Mr. Crow could easily clarify for the committee whether tax deductions were claimed on superyacht and private jet use by Justice Thomas, but he refuses to do so.
This is particularly troubling in light of the committee's discovery of additional lavish international travel by Justice Thomas at Mr. Crow's expense that Justice Thomas has failed to properly disclose.
Wyden's letter asks Bopp to provide financial statements for Rochelle Charter, the holding company for the Michaela Rose, and to answer questions including whether Thomas ever reimbursed Crow for the private jet trip from Hawaii to New Zealand and other travel.
Last month, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who chairs a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on the federal courts and oversight, and Wyden asked the Biden administration to appoint a special counsel to investigate Thomas for alleged ethics violations.
Government ethics advocates weighed in on the new revelations.
"These new reports are as appalling as they are unsurprising," Demand Justice managing director Maggie Jo Buchanan said in a statement. "Justice Thomas' actions and—critically—[Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts'] refusal to assure the public that the court takes these never-ending revelations seriously, shows the necessity of meaningful and immediate reform."
"Trust for the Supreme Court remains at historic lows in part because the MAGA justices openly display their allegiances to wealthy billionaires and partisan interests instead of the public, whom they are meant to serve," Buchanan added. "We call on Congress to urgently pass full-scale reform, including an enforceable code of ethics as President [Joe] Biden proposed last week."
Biden called for, and Vice President Kamala Harris—who is replacing the incumbent atop the Democratic presidential ticket— endorsed reforms including term limits for Supreme Court justices, an enforceable code of ethics, and a constitutional amendment reversing the court's decision to grant presidents broad immunity for official acts.
Last year, the Supreme Court formally announced a new 14-page
code of conduct that watchdog groups dismissed as what the Revolving Door Project called a "toothless PR stunt."
Brett Edkins, managing director of policy and political affairs for the advocacy group Stand Up America, said Monday that "the Supreme Court should be the gold standard for judicial ethics, yet billionaires like Harlan Crow are buying the loyalty of justices one private jet flight at a time."
"Our nation's highest court has become a political plaything for the ultra-wealthy and well-connected," Edkins added. "Congress must step up as a co-equal branch of government and tackle the corruption plaguing the court. It's time for our leaders to restore integrity and transparency to the Supreme Court by passing a binding code of ethics and term limits."
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Democrats, Progressive Groups to Demand Probe of Alito Over Insurrection Flags
"This is a justice who is going to weigh in on cases that are about our democracy, about the former president's participation in an insurrection," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal.
Jun 03, 2024
A pair of House Democrats and a coalition of progressive advocacy groups on Wednesday will hold a press conference on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court demanding a Senate probe into right-wing Justice Samuel Alito, who is under fire after reporting revealed that flags associated with the January 6, 2021 insurrection were displayed at two of the judge's homes in recent years.
Reps. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, will join the leaders of Stand Up America, MoveOn, Demand Justice, and other advocacy groups at the Wednesday press conference, which is scheduled to begin at 9:00 am ET.
"Participants will call on Senate leadership to launch a full and thorough investigation into Justice Alito's actions as well as push forward essential legislation to reform the Supreme Court," organizers said in a press advisory.
Johnson, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, introduced legislation last year that would establish 18-year term limits for Supreme Court justices. Jayapal has also been a vocal supporter of Supreme Court ethics reforms.
The press conference will come days after Alito rejected calls to recuse from pending cases related to former President Donald Trump and the January 6 insurrection after The New York Timesreported that the justice and his wife flew an upside-down American flag and the "Appeal to Heaven" flag at their homes in Virginia and New Jersey.
Both flags were "carried by rioters at the Capitol on January 6, 2021," the Times noted.
"To say that it has no bearing that his wife was flying not just one but two flags is really disturbing."
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said following publication of the Times stories that his panel "has been conducting a thorough investigation into years of ethical lapses by some justices on the Supreme Court—and the committee has been reviewing the latest reporting on Justice Alito as part of this ongoing investigation."
"Flying the American flag upside down at his home is a signal of defiance, which raises reasonable questions about bias and fairness in cases pending before the court," Durbin added.
In letters to members of Congress last week, Alito blamed his wife for flying the two flags and claimed that "a reasonable person who is not motivated by political or ideological considerations or a desire to affect the outcome of Supreme Court cases would conclude that this event does not meet the applicable standard for recusal."
Jayapal, one of the Democratic lawmakers who demanded Alito's recusal, called the justice's response to the request "outrageous" and said he "had an obligation" to step away from cases involving Trump and the 2021 Capitol attack.
"This is a justice who is going to weigh in on cases that are about our democracy, about the former president's participation in an insurrection," Jayapal said in a CNN appearance last week. "To say that it has no bearing that his wife was flying not just one but two flags is really disturbing."
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