Portside

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to introduce articles of impeachment against Associate Justices of the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Anthony Alito Jr. Against Justice Thomas the resolution includes three total articles. One count of failure to disclose financial income gifts reimbursements, property interests, liabilities, and transactions among other information and two counts of refusal to recuse from matters concerning his spouse’s legal and financial interests before the court.

The second resolution includes the following impeachment articles against Justice Alito, one count of a refusal to recuse from cases in which he had a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party before the court and one count of failure to disclose financial incomes, gifts reimbursements property interests, among other information. Mr. Speaker, nomination and appointment to the Supreme Court is one of the highest privileges and most consequential responsibilities of our nation.

Such an appointment is uniquely insulated in its power. Confirmation to the court is a lifetime appointment, whereby justices are entrusted with decisions that powerfully shaped the nation as well as the lives of every American. For this reason and others, the Constitution rightfully and explicitly holds justices to even higher standards than members of Congress, or even the president.

Section one of Article Three of the Constitution commands federal justices to hold their offices during good behavior, in addition to its clauses barring treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors, and Congress has exercised its power to reinforce this higher standard of the judiciary before this body has impeached and removed eight federal judges for transgressions rates ranging from evading income tax and perjury to intoxication on the bench and abandoning the office to join the Confederacy.

Perhaps most critical to the legitimacy of the institution, these traditional standards require justices to recuse themselves in any proceeding where their impartiality might reasonably be questioned. In other words, if a person could reasonably believe that the legitimacy of a justice’s judgment could be or be perceived to be compromised, due to their personal involvement in the case or its parties, the standard is clear. The Justice must recuse. They are required to recuse.

That stringent and sacred standard exists for the good of the ruling the judiciary and the country. Mr. Speaker, I believe that everyday Americans independent of party or ideology can reasonably conclude that Justices Thomas and Alito’s years long pattern of misconduct and failure to recuse in cases bearing their clear personal and financial involvement represents an abuse of power and threat to our democracy fundamentally incompatible with continued service on our nation’s highest court. For the good of the institution and the nation, absent resignation, they must be removed. The proof is undeniable.

And here I will lay it out. Justice Clarence Thomas, for decades now has carried on a close financially entangled personal relationship with real estate billionaire Harlan Crow. It is of material importance to the American people to note that Justice Thomas’s relationship to the billionaire only began after Thomas’s powerful appointment to our nation’s highest court. The cash, goods, and services Justice Thomas received over the years include large loan balance cancellations, tuition payments for family and vacations in private jets and yachts worth up to half a million dollars alone.

In total, Justice Thomas appears to have received more than $1.5 million worth in goods, cash equivalents and services from Mr. Crow. And that is just what we know of. But truthfully, we won’t ever really know the total sum of contributions Thomas received from Crow. Justice Thomas not only accepted these contributions, while Mr. Crow had business in front of the court, but he accepts had them in secret feeling for years and years to report them. Yet Thomas did report smaller gifts during this time, demonstrating a clear understanding of his legal obligation to report. Would a reasonable American question that receiving lavish gifts from Mr. Crow might lead Justice Thomas to have a bias towards his quote friend with business before the court? Without a doubt, yes. But to Justice Thomas recuse? No.

Now take Justice Samuel Alito, who has no shortage of billionaire associates of his own. After billionaire Paul Singer gave Justice Alito a luxury fishing trip on a private jet, a contribution that was also hidden from the public and the court. Justice Alito not only refused to recuse, but changed his mind regarding his gracious hosts case. Just a short time after accepting the lavish undisclosed trip from singer Alito joined the court in reversing its previous position and took up Singer’s case he did not recuse. Justice Alito also refused to recuse in the case itself, ultimately leading to a ruling that netted Singer $2.4 billion and that ruling did not just enrich Singer. It also structurally tilted the playing field further away from working people and towards the vulture funds, siphoning money and resources away from the communities that need the most. Could a reasonable American question whether or not Justice Alito could have acted impartially in this case, given his personal relationship with Singer? Absolutely.

In January 2021, after the former president of the United States incited an insurrection on the Capitol in this chamber to interfere with the results of the US election, Justice Samuel Alito and his wife flew an upside down American flag, a symbol of solidarity with the attack outside their home. Two years later, they publicly displayed outside their home yet another incendiary symbol, a flag associated with extreme right wing Christian nationalism. Justice Alito maintains that his wife, Martha Ann Alito, is the only one responsible for the flags. But common sense maintains that such a close and incendiary revelation requires recusal by the Justice from January 6th related cases. Despite the overwhelming appearance of a conflict of interest, Justice Alito refused to recuse himself from cases surrounding the 2020 election and questions of the former president’s legal immunity in the attack. Would a reasonable person question that Justice Alito’s conduct exhibits and demonstrates reasonable concern for bias in these cases? Absolutely. And without question.

And finally, Justice Thomas, who is married to Virginia Thomas, a financially and personally involved operative in the Stop the Steal movement and Capitol attack also joined opinions in these cases, even as clear evidence mounted that not only was his wife fully committed to overthrowing the results of a fair election, but she was actively lobbying members of the Trump administration attempting to do just that. The questions before the court had unquestionable implications for Thomas’s wife, and consequently, Thomas himself, making his refusal to recuse one of the most shocking examples of conflict of interest in the court’s history. And crucially, it was both Justices Thomas and Alito, who cast critical votes in the ruling.

It now follows that because of Alito’s, and Thomas’s refusals to recuse everyday Americans cannot, should not, and will not believe that these Justices and consequently the court they serve is working to uphold the Constitution and put the country ahead of their own individual self interests. Americans will not believe that the Court interpreted the law independent of profit for themselves and their newly termed friends. Without action against these blatant violations, reasonable Americans have and will continue to lose faith in the court itself. Reasonable Americans will and do believe that Justices Thomas and Alito are prone and subjected to corruption, that the institution failing to punish them is broken, and that consequently, their impeachment is a constitutional imperative and our congressional duty. The abuses of power committed by Justice Thomas and Justice Alito, are precisely the types of corruption that the framers understood was an existential threat to our democracy.

Instances like these, and misconduct like that of Alito’s and Thomas’s are precisely why the framers gave us the tool of impeachment. Corruption, without consequence, infects all it touches. And that is why this body, Congress, has a constitutional and moral obligation to hold these Justices accountable, to maintain the integrity of our courts, and to uphold the standards of the judiciary and our institutions. Lastly, we cannot ignore the most important material consequences of this Court’s unchecked corruption, and its resulting influence, the suffering of the American people.

We cannot ignore and pretend that this corruption is wholly unrelated to the millions of pregnant Americans now suffering and bleeding out in emergency rooms under the court’s unleashing of extreme abortion bans across the United States, which was a key political priority of these undisclosed benefactors, and shadow organizations surrounding Alito and Thomas’s misconduct. Nor can we ignore the millions of Americans now suffering hours long wait times in the hot sun, often without water, just to cast a ballot, also a direct result of this corrupt courts gutting of the Voting Rights Act, allowing the closing of polling sites across the country.

You see, neither of these Justices, nor their shadowy benefactors have to answer to the parents of developmentally delayed children about their decision to gut the power of the EPA and the entire administrative state with it. But they do have to answer to us, the Congress, whom these people the American people have elected and entrusted to protect them, to serve them, and to defend the well being of our democracy.

Mr. Speaker, I am here today presenting these articles of impeachment, not because I am a Democrat, and not because I am blind to its odds in a Republican led chamber. I present them because it is the right thing to do. And while our framers perhaps may not have envisioned someone like me, in this seat, they absolutely did envision the necessity and value of the impeachment action upon which I seek to advance today. Thank you and I yield back.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has served as the U.S. representative for New York's 14th congressional district since 2019,