Petition asks about ethics requirements ahead of Neil Gorsuch speech at Trump hotel
A petition called on Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to clarify ethics requirements for justices’ public appearances, ahead of a scheduled speech by Justice Neil Gorsuch at Trump International Hotel.
“We believe that Chief Justice Roberts has the authority — and the responsibility — to discourage his colleagues from participating in these types of events,” the petition read. “We, the undersigned, call on the chief justice to delineate clearer ethics rules for the justices’ public appearances.”
At issue is Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch’s scheduled speech at the Trump International Hotel in Washington. Gorsuch, Trump’s appointee to the court, is the keynote speaker for the Fund of American Studies’ Defending Freedom Luncheon on Thursday. The event is invite-only.
“A Trump appointee speaking at a Trump hotel as the court considers a Trump case unnecessarily invites reproach of our sole functioning branch of government and hurts its legitimacy,” Gabe Roth of Fix The Court said. “Justices should not only seek out less controversial venues, they should also try to address ideologically diverse groups, as the impact of seeing the country’s leading jurists appear before contrarian audiences would go far beyond whatever words they’d share.”
Since the news first broke about the speech, groups have called on Gorsuch to cancel.
One letter, sent in late August, cited the code of conduct for U.S. judges: “A judge ‘should maintain and enforce high standards of conduct and should personally observe those standards, so that the integrity and independence of the judiciary may be preserved.'”
The appearance will also come after Gorsuch was criticized for appearing with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky over the weekend.
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