Ex-federal prosecutor: Why Gorsuch’s warning against SCOTUS reforms should be taken 'seriously'

Not long after President Joe Biden last month announced his plans to initiate reforms to the US Supreme Court before the end of his term, The Washington Post published an op-ed penned by the president, in which he laid out three steps he would take.

"First, I am calling for a constitutional amendment called the No One Is Above the Law Amendment," Biden wrote. "It would make clear that there is no immunity for crimes a former president committed while in office…. Second, we have had term limits for presidents for nearly 75 years."

The president emphasized, "We should have the same for Supreme Court justices. Third, I'm calling for a binding code of conduct for the Supreme Court. This is common sense. The Court's current voluntary ethics code is weak and self-enforced."

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Since Biden's announcement, Justice Neil Gorsuch warned during a Fox News interview that Americans should "be careful" when it comes to making changes to the High Court.

In an op-ed published by The Daily Beast Monday, former federal prosecutor Shan Wu warns against Gorsuch's warning.

He writes, "We should take that warning seriously, not because reforms to the Supreme Court threaten an independent judiciary, but because the fact that Gorsuch felt free to issue it shows the real dangers of an unchecked Supreme Court."

The ex-federal prosecutor adds, "While Justice Gorsuch may truly believe that the American people should be warned that changes to the federal judiciary may affect its independence, it’s his confident public expression of his views on a matter that is almost surely going to come before him if any reform is enacted that serves as the real warning. It’s warning that the sense of absolute power is not limited to only one justice but several."

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Furthermore, Wu warns: "Gorsuch, like his Young Turk colleagues Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh, is in his fifties. This group of three will continue to shape American law and society for a generation. That’s too long."

Wu's full op-ed is available here (subscription required).