How Chief Justice Roberts helped Kavanaugh with those ethics complaints
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When it comes to judicial ethics, the appearance of bias is taken as seriously as bias. There’s a whole ethical canon in the Code of Conduct for United States Judges that makes that point. It’s entitled, daringly enough, “A Judge Should Avoid ImproprieHow Chief Justice Roberts helped Kavanaugh with those ethics complaints
When it comes to judicial ethics, the appearance of bias is taken as seriously as bias. There’s a whole ethical canon in the Code of Conduct for United States Judges that makes that point. It’s entitled, daringly enough, “A Judge Should Avoid Impropriety and the Appearance of Impropriety in all Activities.” Conservatives seem to have skipped that section on masse. Brett Kavanaugh struggles with ethics in many arenas. But he’s hardly been alone in taking unethical measures to secure partisan bench appointments. Turns out, he’s not even alone on the Supreme Court when it comes to the willingness to act unethically to avoid exposure of other unethical behavior. The D.C. Circuit, Kavanaugh’s former professional haunting ground, sent at least 15 ethics complaints concerning his behavior up to the Supreme Court. From there, Chief Justice Roberts sent them on to the Tenth Circuit, to Chief Judge Timothy Tymkovich. We knew that Tymkovich was appointed by George W. Bush and shortlisted for SCOTUS by Trump, but we didn’t know just how much of a favor Roberts was doing Kavanaugh until now. Problem one, of course, was that Roberts waited until Kavanaugh had been seated on the Supreme Court to send the complaints to a circuit court. By doing so, he ensured Kavanaugh escaped any form of lower-court accountability. And there’s really no such thing as Supreme Court accountability. The second issue is how closely Kavanaugh is tied to Tymkovich. As Kristine Lucius of Leadership Conference notes, “John Roberts and Kavanaugh and Tymkovich are all … tied to the Bush administration and these are all men who certainly knew each other and now are in very powerful positions on the bench.” That would be bad enough. But Kavanaugh championed Tymkovich from nomination to confirmation. He influenced Tymkovich’s selection; he was the architect of the media campaign in advance of the good judge’s confirmation. There’s no part of the Kavanaugh-Roberts-Tymkovich tangle that passes muster under the Judicial Code of Conduct. Kavanaugh has violated, is violating, the most basic element of one of the core ethical canons. A judge should respect and comply with the law and should act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary. Read more