Sheldon Whitehouse: “Lawyers Bopp and Rivkin both tell me that investigating their clients' activities is unconstitutional under the…”

“Lawyers Bopp and Rivkin both tell me that investigating their clients' activities is unconstitutional under the separation of powers. We can't legislate about Supreme Court ethics, so we can't investigate Supreme Court ethics. First, remember that alongside separation of powers is its twin, checks and balances, which requires branches, like the legislative branch, to check and balance the behavior of other branches, like, in this case, the judicial branch. That is what we are doing here--checks and balances. Let's dive down into the specifics a little bit more. There are primarily three topics. One, did the billionaire or the operative take improper advantage of the Tax Code in their dealings with the Justices? That is what we are looking into. The Finance Committee has its own investigation, along with the Judiciary Committee, to focus on the tax side of this. Well, I have to say it is hard to see how abuse of the Tax Code by a private citizen in his tax filings could raise any separation of powers concern. That is between the tax filer, the government, and the law. The Justices are simply not a party to that. Even if we were looking at the Justices' own tax filings, were it to come to that, they would be investigated in their roles not as Justices but as taxpayers.…”