Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday formally filed articles of impeachment against U.S. Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, days after the court’s presidential immunity ruling.
“The unchecked corruption crisis on the supreme court has now spiraled into a constitutional crisis threatening American democracy writ large,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement.
“Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito’s pattern of refusal to recuse from consequential matters before the court in which they hold widely documented financial and personal entanglements constitute a grave threat to American rule of law, the integrity of our democracy, and one of the clearest cases for which the tool of impeachment was designed.”
Her articles of impeachment have been co-sponsored by seven other Democratic House members: Barbara Lee, Rashida Tlaib, Bonnie Watson Coleman, Delia Ramirez, Maxwell Frost, Ilhan Omar, and Jamaal Bowman.
It also comes a day after Democratic Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Ron Wyden requested the Department of Justice criminally investigate Justice Thomas over possible ethics and tax violations.
Articles of impeachment would have to pass the House with a majority vote. After a trial, the Senate would need to convict with a two-thirds supermajority. These both seem like slim possibilities given the party breakdown in both chambers.
Since the Supreme Court was created, only one justice has ever been impeached: Associate Justice Samuel Chase in 1805, who was later acquitted by the Senate. Despite never having a success story at the highest court, there is a precedent for impeaching federal judges, which has happened 15 times over the country’s history.
So how would impeaching a Supreme Court justice work?
Looking at the Constitution, Ocasio-Cortez could try to get Thomas and Alito on “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” or perhaps on Article 3 of the Constitution, which requires that federal judges “hold their Offices during good Behaviour.”
If that seems near impossible, there is also a precedent of shaming a justice out. In 1969, Abe Fortas resigned under the threat of impeachment after a financial scandal regarding securities fraud ruined his career.
