Republican senators are up in arms over an effort by Democrats to subpoena billionaire Harlan Crow and conservative activist Leonard Leo over their ties to luxury travel and gifts accepted by Supreme Court justices.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to subpoena the conservatives after consideration of several judicial nominees. Chairman Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said in his opening remarks the subpoenas are \u2018key pieces of our legislative effort to establish an effective code of conduct\u2019 for the Supreme Court.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018I don\u2019t buy anything you just said,\u2019 Ranking member Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., replied. \u2018Let\u2019s just be real blunt and direct: This is garbage.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
Democrats have long sought to cross-examine Crow, a Republican megadonor, and Leo, the vice president of the Federal Society, as part of an ethics probe into allegations that Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito failed to disclose luxury vacations paid for by the conservatives, their friends.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the Office of Harlan Crow slammed the approved subpoenas as \u2018unlawful and partisan\u2019 after the committee vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018The Judiciary Committee Democrats\u2019 violation of the Committee\u2019s own rules to issue an invalid subpoena further demonstrates the unlawful and partisan nature of this investigation,\u2019 the spokesperson told Fox News Digital in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Despite the unenforceability of the subpoena, Mr. Crow remains willing to engage with the Committee in good faith, just as he has consistently done throughout this process. Mr. Crow offered extensive information responsive to the Committee\u2019s requests despite his strong objections to its necessity and legality. So far, Committee Democrats have been dismissive of Mr. Crow\u2019s good faith offer and unwilling to engage in constructive dialogue,\u2019 Crow\u2019s office continued. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Committee Democrats have made intrusive demands of a private citizen that far exceed any reasonable standard and to this date have not explained why this request is necessary to craft legislation, particularly now that the Committee has completed its work on ethics legislation. Still, Mr. Crow maintains his readiness to discuss the matter further with the Committee.\u2019<\/p>\n
Thursday\u2019s vote comes weeks after the Supreme Court issued a new \u2018Code of Conduct\u2019 in response to months of heightened scrutiny from Democratic lawmakers and news reports. Durbin said the self-imposed ethics code \u2018falls far short\u2019 and urged Congress to impose more rigorous standards on the high court.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Republicans have panned Democrat-sponsored legislation, the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal and Transparency (SCERT) Act, as a \u2018court-killing machine\u2019 that would \u2018destroy the legitimacy of the conservative court.\u2019 They argue that federal judges are already bound to an ethics code, including Supreme Court justices, and that an act of Congress on the judiciary would unconstitutionally infringe on a separate and co-equal branch of government.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ahead of the hearing, GOP senators introduced more than 170 amendments in what Durbin told reporters was an attempt to delay the subpoenas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018It\u2019s an indication that they\u2019re determined to delay any opportunity to serve a subpoena on Leonard Leo and others who are engaged in this,\u2019 Durbin said. \u2018I just think they are afraid, very afraid that there was information that could be controversial and harmful.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
But Republicans lambasted the Democrat-led effort as political theater. \u2018I call it subpoena palooza,\u2019 Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told reporters outside the hearing room.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Graham challenged Democrats, saying that if they were serious about the allegations against Thomas and Alito, they would bring the SCERT Act up for a vote. \u2018Why hasn\u2019t the majority leader brought up the bill that all of y\u2019all voted for to fix this problem?\u2019 he demanded, later supplying that Democrats won\u2019t advance the bill because it lacks enough support to pass in the Senate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018I don\u2019t know who\u2019s driving the train on your side, but you\u2019re driving the committee off into a ditch,\u2019 Graham added, calling the subpoena vote a \u2018joke.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fox News\u2019 Tyler Olson, Fox News Digital\u2019s Cameron Cawthorne and the Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n\n
Republican senators are up in arms over an effort by Democrats to subpoena billionaire Harlan Crow and conservative activist Leonard Leo over their ties to luxury travel and gifts accepted by Supreme Court justices.\u00a0 The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to subpoena the conservatives after consideration of several judicial nominees. Chairman Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12312","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}