Sheldon Whitehouse: “last week, I spoke about the scheme of corruption by rightwing billionaires out to capture the Supreme Court. I…”

“last week, I spoke about the scheme of corruption by rightwing billionaires out to capture the Supreme Court. I mentioned their lawyers' blockade of our investigation into this corruption and described how little sense their lawyers' arguments made. That brings us to this speech today. The connection is that those, in my view, nonsense lawyers' arguments badly needed propping up. And who should come to the rescue but U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito. Alito's actions propping up that argument caused me to write this ethics complaint against him. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record my full letter to Chief Justice Roberts and a portion of the letter from Mr. Rivkin at the end of my remarks. Mr. President, this complaint highlights some of the Supreme Court's current legitimacy problems, which are legion. One is that the Court has no procedure for an ethics complaint. I had to write to Chief Justice Roberts, both in his capacity as Chief Justice and in his capacity as Chair of the Judicial Conference, because, unlike in every other Federal court, there is no clarity about process. The Supreme Court has no formal process for receiving or investigating such complaints, so they go there to die. Complaints about Supreme Court Justices have sometimes been referred to the Judicial Conference, and there, they have mostly disappeared. So it is a mess.…”