'That or the highway': Elie Mystal says Congress should threaten Supreme Court funding to enforce ethics code

The recent plethora of ethics and corruption scandals that have involved multiple jurists on the United States Supreme Court including Chief Justice John Roberts has triggered an explosion of demand for codified independent oversight of the Court.

On Friday night's edition of The Reid Out, justice correspondent for The Nation Elie Mystal suggested how lawmakers on Capitol Hill could pressure the normally independent judiciary into compliance.

Host Joy Reid noted that "the conduct by Clarence Thomas could be criminal. The conduct by [Brett] Kavanaugh back during that time could be, could have been criminal. The FBI did a pretend investigation of him. He's sitting on the court judging whether we can have the rights over our own bodies and he might have misused the bodies of women. To me, they seem completely out of the bounds of ethics and they don't care."

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First, Mystal critiqued Democrats for their lackluster rebuttal to the issues plaguing the Court.

"[Senator Mazie] Hirono [D-Hawaii] just said something that I think is, is, is a problem with the Democratic Party's response to this entire ethical catastrophe. Right? And she said it right. She was like, we were hoping that the Supreme Court adopts for itself an ethical, a code of ethics. Why are we leaving it up to them? Like what, what more does the Supreme Court have to do to prove that it is incapable of policing itself?" Mystal wondered.

"At this point we are in a world where the Supreme Court's like, 'oh, we can totally police, look, we, we saw a mouse in our house and we caught it.' No, you idiot. If you saw the mouse, that means you've got ten in the walls and you need to burn it with fire, okay?" Mystal retorted. "Like it is time to send in the cats. It is time to send in the owls. It is time to send in independent oversight over the Supreme Court that the Supreme Court does not have a choice with."

Next, Mystal recommended a novel way for Congress to impose at least some accountability on the Court.

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"And so the thing that I wanted Senator Hirono to say, that I want Senator [Dick] Durbin [D-Illionois] to say, that I want anybody in Congress to say, is to use Congress's congressional authority over the power of the purse to bring these justices to heal. It is Congress that controls Supreme Court funding," Mystal said.

"Now we have seen, because of some of the, some of the drip, drip, drip of scandals that you mentioned, Joy, we have seen that these nine people are probably able to live without their government salaries. Right? Between their land deals and their book deals and their laundering money through their spouses. They probably don't need their government salaries, right? But I bet they like having a courthouse. I bet they like having clerks. I bet they like having free Westlaw access. I know they like having taxpayer-funded security details, right? And if Congress starts taking those away, if Congress puts the stick to these people and starts taking away some of their perks and some of their privileges, then I bet you the Supreme Court would see the virtue in submitting to independent ethics oversight," Mystal opined.

"It is that or the highway," he concluded. "This ridiculousness of the Supreme Court's 'police itself' has already been proven to be false and unable for these justices to do."

Watch below or at this link.

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