Schumer blasts Supreme Court’s new ethics code for one ‘glaring omission’

In a statement released on Wednesday, New York Senator Chuck Schumer blasted the Supreme Court’s new ethics code for failing to address potential conflicts of interest involving the justices’ money. Schumer specifically cited what he called a “glaring omission” in the code, which excludes ‘[d]isclosure of travel, meals, gifts and other things of value received from any source other than another Federal judge or Federal judicial employee.’

Schumer argued that the new code allows justices to accept “gifts, trips, or meals … from special interest groups without disclosing or addressing their potential conflicts of interest.” He suggested that this was a “recipe for corruption” and said that “our courts are supposed to be free of bias and special interests”.

The lack of disclosure put forth by the new document was also criticized by other organizations, including Common Cause, which said that the code “fails to protect litigants, parties and the public from the appearance and risk of bias.” Schumer echoed these sentiments, saying that the court must “do better” to ensure their code is “truly rules of judicial ethics instead of bywords for unaccountability.”