GOP presidential candidate: Democrats 'undermining' the Supreme Court which should 'set' its own 'rules'

Former Arkansas Governor and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson said on Sunday's edition of Meet the Press that the United States Supreme Court should implement "a clear set of rules" to prevent future corruption scandals like the ones that are plaguing Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Chief Justice John Roberts.

NBC News moderator Chuck Todd recalled to Hutchinson that "back in the late nineties when you were in Congress, you led a bipartisan effort. There was a rebuke, an ethics investigation of then-Speaker Newt Gingrich. And you led a bipartisan effort and, hey, this is what was concluded. And it was a bipartisan action. He had to pay a pretty hefty fine. But it was, it was accepted by the public because it was bipartisan. Do we need that here with the Supreme Court? it feels like there isn't an accepting of the premise that the Court has an ethical problem right now."

Hutchinson somewhat agreed, but also accused "the Democrats" of attempting to rig the Court.

READ MORE: Senator lays out possible tax violations and 'fraud' for payments to Clarence Thomas' wife

"Well, this is a, an important issue and whenever you look at the confidence of the Supreme Court, which is critical to operation of our democracy, that confidence level is somewhat down. But if you look back in history, you had during the Warren Court, they had a controversial decision, Brown versus Board of Education, and for a long time the court was under extraordinary criticism. The confidence level was, was diminished. That has been built back up over time. You've had a controversial decision and history is repeating itself," Hutchinson said. "You've got, in this case, the Democrats undermining the Court, first of all by wanting to pack it more than nine, which has been our historic number."

Congress has the constitutional authority to add justices to the bench, although the last time that it happened was in 1869.

"And then secondly, these allegations against Justice Thomas. The Court needs to be transparent. First of all, they need to be clear on what their reporting rules are. They need to review those to make sure they're very similar to the other public officials and branches of government, which is, has broad reporting requirements clearly have not been sufficient. They've changed those. But I think they need to step just simply in terms of their transparency so the American people understand what the rules are and what is required and is similar to other public officials," Hutchinson opined.

"Sounds like you think Chief Justice Roberts, you think he needs to come out and publicly state what you just said?" asked Todd.

READ MORE: Clarence Thomas in 2001: Being a Supreme Court justice is 'not worth doing for what they pay'

"Well, sure," Hutchinson replied. His solution was not legislation.

"I think there needs to be a clear set of rules and there needs to be openness about it so that everybody knows what the rules are. Those are important. Every public official has to follow those. They can set those. They should set those versus the Congress of the United States because they are a separate branch of government."

Watch below or at this link.

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