'Loopholes' and 'unresolved questions': Legal reporter lays out 6 problems with new SCOTUS ethics code

On Monday, November 13, the U.S. Supreme Court adopted — for the first time in its history — an official ethics code.

The Roberts Court had been resisting such a code. But after months of scathing criticism, the justices changed their minds.

The Court's reputation has suffered for a variety of reasons, from the overturning of Roe v. Wade to gifts that Justice Clarence Thomas accepted from billionaire Harlan Crow (according to ProPublica) to GOP activist Ginni Thomas (Justice Thomas' wife) falsely claiming that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.

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In a listicle published by Politico on November 13, legal reporter Josh Gerstein lays out six of the "biggest loopholes, ambiguities and unresolved questions" in the High Court's new ethics code.

The six things that Gerstein cites are: (1) "no new breakthroughs," (2) " malcontents on all sides," (3) a "two-step on spouses," (4) an "elastic prohibition on leaks," (5) "acute security concerns," and (6) "ducking the Alito-Kagan fight."

"Laid out over five 'canons' that span eight pages, the code is written in turgid legal prose and is accompanied by a one-paragraph introductory statement and a five-page 'commentary," Gerstein explains. "Signed by all nine justices, it has all the makings of a compromise engineered by Chief Justice John Roberts, who, 12 years ago, defended the Court's lack of a binding code but undoubtedly has been shaken by the Court's growing crisis of public confidence and Congress' escalating overtures at oversight."

READ MORE: These Clarence Thomas 'patrons' underscore the need for a Supreme Court 'code of ethics': analysis

Josh Gerstein's full article for Politico is available at this link.