First on Fox: Conservative activist Leonard Lew told Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee today that he “will not be a part” of their investigation into the travel habits of conservative Supreme Court justices, citing the Bill of Rights and liberal hypocrisy as reasons.
“Your investigation of Mr. Lew violates two provisions of the Bill of Rights,” lawyers for Leonard Lew wrote in a letter to Democratic Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Dick Durbin, obtained by Fox News Digital.
“By selectively targeting Mr. Liu for investigation based on politically charged allegations, while ignoring other potential sources of information on a claimed subject of interest who are similar to Mr. Liu but hold different political views that are more in line with the majority of the committee, your inquiry appears to be political retaliation against a private citizen,” he wrote in his first violation.
This month, the White House and Durban sent a letter Leo and billionaires Paul Singer and Robin Arkley II are demanding more information about a ProPublica report that Alito “accepted and failed to disclose” a luxury Alaska fishing vacation with the two billionaires in 2008. Leo reportedly arranged the trip.
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Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. (Concerned Institution)
The senators asked for an itemized list of gifts and payments to Liu or groups he has been associated with over the decades and any Supreme Court justices he has been associated with.
“To date, Chief Justice Roberts has barely acknowledged, much less investigated or attempted to fix, the ethics crisis swirling around our highest court. So, if the Court won’t investigate or act, Congress should,” Whitehouse and Durbin said. News for the newspaper. “Answers to these questions will aid the committee’s work to create a reliable sewer of ethics in the Court, under clearly established oversight and legislative authority by Congress.”
Liu’s lawyers responded by saying the Democrats’ request was inconsistent with the First Amendment and other parts of the Constitution.
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“For similar reasons, your inquiry cannot be reconciled with the equal protection component of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. And regardless of its other constitutional weaknesses, your inquiry appears to lack a valid legislative framework, because the legislation the committee is considering would, as their lawyers say, be unconstitutional.”
The response also pointed to several instances of liberal Supreme Court justices accepting lavish visits, failing to recuse themselves from the cases, and accepting funds from unknown donors.
The letter explains that former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer took more than 200 trips that were “paid for by private individuals,” including a trip to the Nantucket compound in 2013 that was paid for by a billionaire.
In another example, the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg accepted a $1 million gift from a billionaire foundation and then distributed the money to liberal causes.
“None of these incidents resulted in a committee inquiry,” the letter from Liu’s lawyers said.
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He also argued that Senate Democrats have an “extensive record” of vilifying Liu for his political advocacy through the Federalist Society and said “it is difficult to conclude that the disparate treatment Mr. Liu is being subjected to is the result of anything other than outright retaliation.”
The Federalist Society, which Liu has been a part of for decades, has long been criticized by liberal activists for allegedly using “dark money” to advise and lobby former President Trump through the nominations of Supreme Court Justices Gorsuch, Cavanaugh and Barrett.
Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas speaks at the Heritage Foundation on October 21, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Drew Anger/Getty Images)
In recent months, ProPublica’s reporting on the travel habits of Alito and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been widely criticized by conservatives who have pointed out that the “experts” cited in various articles Unknown relationships For democratic purposes.
Furthermore, conservatives have Called ProPublica is largely funded by organizations and donors who support liberal causes, including court packing and removing conservative judges from the court.
Alito has defended himself against ProPublica’s reporting, and Leo has issued a statement rejecting the idea that the fishing trip was somehow being kept from the public.
“Justice Alito spoke about that trip to dozens of reporters and more than 2,000 people when Paul Singer introduced it at a Federalist Society dinner fourteen years ago,” Liu said in a statement earlier this month. “No one, then or since, questioned Justice Alito’s impartiality.”
“The only thing that has changed in all these years is that ProPublica and its large pool of liberal dark money donors are having a hard time accepting the fact that they are now losing cases because there are no longer enough justices to ignore the law and uphold their policy preferences,” Liu added.
Leonard Love speaks at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast on April 23, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Thomas’ supporters have insisted that he broke no laws or ethics. A friend of his, Trump’s former OMB general counsel I. Mark Pauletta, detailed the revelations in a lengthy Twitter post in May.
“It’s politics,” said Roger Severino of the Heritage Foundation, who served as director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights from 2017-2021. In this position, Severino oversaw compliance with ethical principles related to gifts.
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Leo has dealt with. Left-wing activists have been protesting in front of their homes in recent days, including one protester dressed as an “angry uterus.” The White House and Durban are turning the Senate into a “platform of irresponsible sensationalism” where a person’s “right to hold unpopular beliefs” is ignored, their lawyers said in a letter.
“We will not be a part of this trip,” the letter concluded.
Source by [Fox News]
