The Lion Sleeps Tonight

Senator Grassley Yawns in Response to Supreme Court Corruption

Iowa’s US Senator Chuck Grassley misses the point - by a country mile - with his muted and misguided reaction to the unfolding scandals at the U.S. Supreme Court. In doing so, he helps erode the Court’s credibility and takes another wrecking ball to his own legacy.

Surely Senator Grassley knows better than the nonsense he is putting out about the multiple Supreme Court scandals. But, given his preference for partisan hackery these days over principled, responsible leadership, one can never be sure.

What we do know is this: The Court scandals are serious. They erode trust and confidence in the Supreme Court - its only currency. They demand a quick, strong and corrective response.

Neither the court itself, nor Grassley are providing either.

The scandals at the Supreme Court now include at least the following;

• An informal, sort of “Adopt a Supreme Court Justice” scheme in which right wing Justices are paired with right wing billionaires who shower them with financial favors, lavish astonishingly expensive -and all expenses paid - dream vacations and private jet travel that would cost mere mortals hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Cozy secret deals have come to light in recent weeks and months involving Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, both “adopted,” so to speak, by right wing billionaires. In retrospect, we have to reconsider the circumstances around the passing of the late Justice Anthony Scalia in 2016 - during an all expenses paid, high ticket, hunting junket at a resort in Texas. Another likely passenger on the Supreme Court gravy train..

• Failure to recuse themselves from cases that come before the Court that involve their financial benefactors, a clear conflict of interest. A separate scandal involves Justice Thomas’ failure to recuse himself from cases that involved the January 6 insurrection, which we now know his wife helped plan.

• Failure to even report lavish gifts that any reasonable reading of judicial financial reporting guidelines would conclude required those gifts to be reported. Even if you think they did nothing wrong in accepting such lavish gifts or failing to recuse themselves from cases where they had glaring conflicts of interest, there still remains their obligation to report those gifts and conflicts. Which they did not do. None of it was disclosed. The American people were kept in the dark.

Grassley’s response? Describing his response as a yawn flatters it.

Senator Grassley says Congress shouldn’t put any additional ethics rules in place for the Supreme Court. Essentially, if something needs to be done, trust the Court to do it.

Even though this Court has demonstrated it can’t even be trusted to comply with long existing, clearly written, judicial reporting requirements.

The Supreme Court did tweak its own reporting rules in March after the Thomas scandals surfaced, in a way it said would ensure more complete disclosure and draw tighter rules for accepting gifts. Many observers say those tweaks needed to go much further to have real effect.

Grassley told reporters last week he wants Congress to wait and see if those changes were enough before Congress gets involved.

Really?

The Court’s failure is not one isolated incident. It is not a momentary lapse for this Court. It is not the result of reporting requirements so poorly worded that they rattled and confused the supposed best legal minds in America. It has been a systematic failure, over decades, driven by Justices we are supposed to be able to trust, but who read and understood existing reporting rules and ignored them. Time and time again. On very big matters.

The house, in other words, is on fire. Waiting to see if it self extinguishes does not sound like a great strategy to me.

This Court has clearly demonstrated that it is incapable of policing itself. Any lower court judge who did what they did - as well as wha they did not do - would have landed in hot water immediately.

Chief Justice John Roberts has also proven, by his limited action and slow response, that he is not the Chief who is going to repair the damage already done to the Supreme Court’s reputation.

There needs to be an intervention, because this Court has had plenty of time to fix itself and has utterly failed to do so. That intervention needs to come with a sense of urgency. Highly controversial, combustible cases are landing at the Supreme Court regularly now and the American people need to have confidence in the independence of its decisions.

And by the way: How many years is America supposed to wait to see whether the Court’s recent tweaks were enough to ensure that these kinds of scandals end?

Grassley doesn’t say. He provides no timeline. He also provides no criteria for making a judgement about their adequacy when the time comes.

He doesn’t even say, really, that there is a problem. Just let’s wait and let the Supreme Court do whatever needs to be done itself - if anything needs to be done.

In short, Grassley yawned: “Let the Court do it. Not my job.”

That’s just what the partisans who want the rich and powerful to have a non-transparent, inside track on every government decision want to hear, by the way.

At age 89, Senator Grassley is in his 8th term in the Senate. It’s the capstone of a career in pubic office that began when the Beatles were still unknowns playing tiny neighborhood gigs as the “Quarry Men.” Teenage girls who a few years later would go wild for them are now many of them, today, Grandmothers, Great Grandmothers and more.

At this point in his career, Senator Grassley should be an elder statesman among his fellow Republicans. He should be the conscience of the Republican Party, especially on matters involving the federal judiciary. He is, after all, a true Senate lion: a former Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the sixth longest serving US Senator in America’s history.

It should be his voice - Iowa’s voice - saying, “This corruption will not stand and we’re going to stop to it.”

Instead, he has, chosen to play a role similar to that of Sgt. Schultz on the old “Hogan’s Heroes” TV series. He “sees nothing” and “hears nothing” these days.

The Supreme Court scandals provide Grassley the perfect opportunity to wind down his public career with a powerful reminder to Iowans and all Americans of the service he once provided, years ago, in tracking down and exposing graft, fraud and corruption, primarily in the Pentagon, but also by insisting on accountability from all government officials.

Instead, in the twilight of his career, he has decided to take a nap and then go fishing.

Charles Grassley was once a reliable voice, insisting on government accountability and ethics. With today’s Supreme Court scandals, he’s become little more than a tired enabler of those scandals.

He needs to do better. If for no other reason - and there are plenty of other reasons - then for the sake of his own legacy, which he, sadly, continues to shred.

Barry Piatt on Politics: Behind the Curtains is a weekly column that is part of the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative. The Collaborative links some of Iowa’s best thinkers and writers directly with readers to help fill the gap left as many of Iowa’s traditional newspapers cut back on opinion, analysis and even reporting on a wide range of topics. Please review the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative columns listed below and consider subscribing - either for free or with a paid subscription - to help ensure that readers continue to have access to informed and thoughtful opinion, analysis, commentary, and reporting. Your subscriptions, especially paid subscriptions, are what makes this effort work and allow these columns to be available.

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