Legal Af
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Supreme Court EXPOSED by Lower Courts as Ethics Code SPIRALS OUT OF CONTROL!!!
Posted
August 12, 2026
Views
21,969
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2,041
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August 12, 2026
21,969
2,041
134
9.90%
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23:22Now PlayingAttorneys Brian Kabateck and Shant Karnikian sit down with Gabe Roth of Fix the Court, who had a front-row seat at the first Supreme Court budget hearing in seven years, to unpack what Justices Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett revealed — and dodged — about ethics, security, and the court's ballooning $225 million budget. Gabe explains why the justices' 2023 code of conduct is weaker than the code binding all 2,400 lower federal court judges and has zero enforcement mechanism, prompting Senator Jack Reed to call it "aspirational." Unlike lower courts, where anyone can file a misconduct complaint that gets reviewed by a judge or panel, the Supreme Court has no equivalent process — something Justice Kagan herself has floated fixing by letting the chief justice appoint retired judges to review complaints. Gabe also breaks down Senator Chris Murphy's Supreme Court Ethics Act, which would force the justices to adopt a code at least as strict as the lower courts' and create a public ethics-complaint inbox, and explains the two enforcement tools that already exist on paper: Justice Department civil penalties for false financial disclosures, and Congress's power to strip everything from the court's budget except its roughly $100 million security allocation. Brian and Shant press Gabe on the real-world toll of rising threats against judges, including a swatting attempt on Justice Barrett's home and a redacted FOIA file on threats during her trip to Rome. Gabe's bottom line: the court has been handed enormous power over the last two decades, and with that power comes the responsibility to run its own chambers — and police its own ethics — like any other employer.
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