Interview Opens Justice Alito To Ethics Case

When the Supreme Court left for its summer recess in June, the justices were at a stalemate on adopting a formal ethics code, Joan Biskupic wrote for CNN.

Photo Insert: Chief Justice John Roberts has been seeking unanimity among the nine justices for ethics standards.

Chief Justice John Roberts has been seeking unanimity among the nine justices for ethics standards, CNN has learned, but such agreement has eluded him.

Justice Samuel Alito’s new comments in a Wall Street Journal interview suggest other justices grouse over pressure to craft an ethics code despite escalating controversy over justices’ lavish travel and other off-bench behavior.

Yet, even as Alito brushed aside the controversy over justices’ luxury travels, including his own, he created a new conflict of interest issue by granting a lawyer with cases before the court hours of personal access for the interviews.

Appellate lawyer David B. Rivkin Jr., one of his WSJ interviewers, represents litigants in a tax case.

Rivkin also wrote to two Democratic senators and defended Alito and the activities of Leonard Leo, who has influenced choices for the high court and who has helped arrange travel and other benefits for sitting justices.

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