When doktor, posse Jani at Dana farmer cancer institute showed how the eu you have our mutation in lung cancer patients switches on cancer growth it led to an empty. I approve drug that was the first brought application of precision medicine in lung cancer. This each F r inhibitor has led the way for other active, targeted lung cancer therapies find out more about dean of harbour momentum at work at Dana farmer, dot, org, slash stories. from new york times. I'm likeable borrow this is a daily today, the justices of the supreme court key testing the rules that govern their ethics, Adam lived with views, The allegations of misconduct unexplored. the growing cause to do something about it.

Its monday may eighth Adam the morning, hello, Michael for once Adam. We are not going to talk to you about a supreme court case. Instead, we want to talk to you about the justices themselves and Their ethics. That's ok needs a timely subject is daily revelations about potential is its problems with the supreme good right? That's exactly what we want to talk this slew of revelations over the past few weeks. So can you to summarize the biggest of those revelations? Well, the biggest ones by far all involved justice clarence, thomas and his relationship a billionaire republican donor named harlin grow and the news

organization. Republika has now published three how to characterize them bombshells. I guess I call them bombshells. A brand new report is raising some serious questions about supreme court, justice, clarence, thomas and the lavish gifts that he reportedly accepted from a geo mega donor. So the first article concerned luxury trips that crow his provided to justice, thomas and his family for seemingly decades. The report says that the time is this flew on crows private chat to indonesia. For them nine day, luxury vacation, one that they say is valued at more than five hundred thousand dollars now programme. Shirking proof, history reveals that Harlan crow has purchased real estate from justice thomas many report says a wealthy republican donor owns the house where supreme court, justice, clarence thomas is mother, lives here,

to hear harling crowed till it. He wants to turn this house into a museum to honour justice Miss any has paid money to have portraits dial of justice tommy, so he's a big and then, on thursday morning probability publishes a third story. How public I reports this morning, the gene he billionaire donor, Harlin crow pay for the private school to wish in four clarence thomas is grand nephew who Thomas was raising as a sun. Limber just establishes family is private school situation. for years paid by hurling crow and not a trivial private school tuition is that total amount paid isn't known, but payments are made to two separate schools and could have exceeded one hundred fifty thousand dollars. The report says that thomas did not disclose okay, so that's justice, thomas

a little bit of a doozy. What's next, so we're gonna move into areas which are more complicated. political is reporting gore such finally found a buyer for a property he koala with two partners, nine days after being confirmed and let it go reports. The justice neil gore, should long with some partners owns some. The state in colorado and soon after justice course. Judges confirm to the court. Ceo of a permanent law. Firm. Remember, tory, buys the property once

the ceo learns the course which was one of the properties odors. He checks with the firms ethics department, yet the okay to go forward with the sale and this law firm. We should note, has had many cases before the supreme court and the twelve cases where acquire such as opinion is required, and he sided with that firms. Clients eight times and now, there's chief justice. John robbers Thirdly, reporting there's Jane roberts, the wave of chief justice, John roberts, she's, a lawyer two years after the chief justice goes on the bench she gives up or law practice because she doesn't want to cross lines. She goes into a different business. She becomes a legal recruiter, she's very good at it, but it can't hurt. They hear the wife of the chief justice of the united states. Is this

I d reporting that his wife made over ten million dollars recruiting for elite law firms, at least one of whom argued a case before the supreme court. This any questions have been raised also about whether that cross Ethical line right questions that I know have become part of a lawsuit filed by somebody who claims whistleblower a former king. Of Jane roberts end the crux of his claim and adam correct me: if I'm wrong is that when you're the wife of the head of a supreme court, and you go around to law firms asking Their business is very hard for them to say no, because they may think that saying no to the wife of the head of the supreme court might hurt their chances if they have a case before the chief justice and the court yes characterizes his claim.

ok. So I'm all these situations naturally raised the question of whether the justices violated ethics rule. So what are the relevant rules for us to be thinking about that? it may or may not have violated the two main federal laws in this area which apply to supreme court? Justices, revolve around financial disclosures and the need to recuse yourself to disqualify yourself from a case in which you might have a conflict. Okay, let's start with a broad summary of the disclosure rules. They are not uncomplicated, but basically they require disclosure of income

beyond the justices, normal salary and gifts as a general matter with exceptions uk. And what about refusal? There are particular requirements for refusal if you have severe financial state in a case or if your spouse a party to a case and then as a general rule that judges injustices should avoid the appearance of impropriety right kind of self judge. Whether a situation requires them to cut a step back So how do these rules out on these two categories apply?

To say the justice thomas revelations of all of these gifts from harlan crowd this billionaire friend of its. So let's do them one. At the time we ve got tripped. We ve got real estate. We ve got to issuing as two trips. The statute carved out in doesn't require disclosure of personal hospitality. You know, if you go to someone's house and stay overnight, you get fed, dare you don't have to report that it's a lot less clear, whether if you have travel paid for it and you have run the world whether that falls into personal hospitality, but justice Thomas's viewed in response to this regulation that he was advised at the time that it did. He saying that even the most luxurious trip imaginable on a yacht falls into the category of a friend is just being hostile.

Ball and as your hinting at technically Maybe that is correct but doesn't seem like its following: the intent of the law, yes and then there's a complicating factor, which is that the body in charge of interpreting the law for the justices has just recently clarified things and said this kind of travel doesn't count that it's not personal hospitality and, in his statement just the thomas says going forward he's going to disclose? Oh well, so maybe what he did was sit ethical until just recently, but new rule

say that it no longer really is yes. This is deeply contested. Many people think the original statute is unambiguous against commas, but it does help him that a recent clarification made clear that this kind of travel doesn't count. Okay, so then we get to the real estate deal. The real estate deal is simple: the law required him to disclose it. He didn't disclose it. There's no dispute that that was a violation of the disclosure law and what about these tuition payments for his relative that Harlan made so long is that's a gift to thomas and not to the grim nephew. It seems play

also under the law, the debts, a gift it should have been disclosed and in fact, some years ago, when a different person paid five thousand dollars toward the tuition of this grand nephew justice, Thomas did disclosure team. all these examples seemed to fall under that first bucket of rules Adam around financial disclosure and in a couple of cases it seems just atomic pretty clearly violated those rules. What about the second bucket refusal? Does that perhaps come into play with Harlan crow in these gifts? Tarling crow himself personally? Does not seemed to have had business before the court he's a business man with interests in lots of different companies and Bloomberg reported that in at least one case, It's grow, affiliated company was involved in a case. The supreme court decided not to hear

and there was no indication that thomas had refused himself from that and Adam. At this point, I think many listeners minds might drift to another nother related set of issues surrounding justice, thomas, which is that he did not refuse itself from a case involving the twenty twenty election and efforts by president trump to challenge those results. Even though justice, Thomas's, wife ginny, is very active in efforts to overturn the two thousand and twenty election, and so that feels relevant

Yes, on three different occasions, he not only sat on but twice dissented in cases at the supreme court involving January six in efforts to get to the bottom of it and given ginni thomas's activities. Legal experts say that's not a close case. If there's such a thing as an appearance of impropriety that satisfies it and if your spouse is involved in efforts to overturn an election and a congressional body is looking into it and the question is: should they be allowed to figure out what happened? You would think the justice we should have reduced himself frame and not only did not refuse himself. He essentially in each of these cases, dissented against the majority of his colleagues on the cord and made clear that he was spiritually

beginning siding with his wife and her agenda. That's right! Ok, that is just as thomas, and that was a lot. Let's turn now to justice course, such an his real estate deal. Did he follow the relevant rules? You know, most legal experts say that he did that what was required to be disclosed was disclosed. Would it be better if we had more information? Yes, but it seems he followed. The ethics rules as they were it So that's disclosure. What about refusal have questions been raised about whether corset should have accused himself from any cases involving the ceo of this law firm who purchase this land that course edge co

and well, I'm the one hand. The firm did have cases before the court. On the other hand, most legal ethics experts say that this is not the kind of case in which recusal is required, given that there's no indication that this was anything but an arm's length, transaction, hmm, so you're, saying there's enough degrees of separation here, unlike in the case of justice, thomas to conclude that this doesn't raise the same kinds of ethical questions. That sounds right to me. Okay, finally, Adam. What do the rules have to say about this third revelation involving the chief justice, John roberts and his wife jane? So the disclosure requirements are that you have.

To say where your spouse gutting come from and not the amount of the income, and the chief justice of course did disclosed at his wife works at illegal, recruiting firm and he did not disclose her income and he's not required to know whistle blowers claim is that this is not salary exactly these are commissions and that there should have been disclosure of the law firms paying the commission that has some object to it, but it doesn't seem to be required by the disclosure rules got us into whistleblower wishes. that the chief justice had gone to greater lengths to disclose the source of his wife income? He didn't but is not clear that he had to

so. In summary, it seems, roberts more or less followed. The disclosure rules here do refusal rules at all come into play for him. Under these circumstances,. legal experts generally say no. There is eyes re opinion from the court system. That says occasional, legal, recruiting efforts don't require refusal. Is the firm net appears before you, but if they were sustained and your four of them in a year. Maybe you get a different result. I don't think legal experts on ethics think the relationship is direct enough, that you paid Jane roberts, some sum of money to recruit a new partner and therefore, when you appear before the supreme court, the chief justice should recuse himself interesting

So the scorecard here is that these justices are doing a somewhat good, but by no means perfect of following the letter of the law when it comes to their financial ethics and then I think we have to separate what I just said from what happened in the case of justice, thomas who seems to be doing a very poor job of following the ethics rules and perhaps stands alone in repeatedly, and perhaps somewhat brazenly violating those rules right in the one reason to think that he is because he used to disclose stuff, and then he stopped justice. Thomas in his judicial work in cases involving campaign finance is some. I'm a lone voice in assisting the discord. There is a bad idea, so this

consistent with his judicial views. That less is more than nothing to see here, trust us. We should not be made to explain ourselves to the american public. And the reality is that if justice, thomas or another justice does cross and ethical line very hard to do anything about it, we'll right back. I'm lydia rain. I Michel coddled, I'm rostov, I'm Carlos Lozada and we are all writers for the new york times, opinion section and we're here to announce that we Launching a new podcast, it's called matter of opinion each week, will pick a topic from the news, politics and culture from our own work. We'll go in depth, we'll talk it through with each other debating, but also trying to just make sense of what is

Let's face it pretty weird and fascinating time to be alive. Listen to me or of opinion thinking aloud I'd start thought is allowed outside ok thoughts, aloud. matter of opinion. Every thursday listened where ever get your podcasts so Adam. Just before the break, you said that it's hard to actually do anything about the fact that a supreme court justice has run afoul of an ethics rule, so just explain what that actually means in the context of the cases that we have been talking about so far lots extraordinary thing, there's the old legal adage that no one should be the judge in his or her own case, and yet this is a stark exception to that. The justices get to decide for them.

Cells, whether to refuse what to disclose. And it's you disagree, there's nobody. no to night, so we're really in a world which is it actually the opposite of that intuition. Everyone has where you shouldn't get to be the judge in your own case, and this is not a completely new world. There are historical example. Some reason, some long ago, for instance, just sent in his clear with dark hunting with vice president dick cheney, while dick Cheney had a case before the supreme court, he liberal justices, Stephen briar and ruth better Ginsburg went on countless trips subsidized all sorts of groups, justice briar, went to nantucket on trip paid for by David Rubinstein, a private equity mogul justice, ruth better Ginsburg got a private tour of Israel,

who paid for by israeli billionaire who had had business before the court. So the justices on both sides of the ideological spectrum could have been a lot more careful. And all of this, especially the new revelations, have raised this question of whether self policing is hopelessly ineffective and we need an alternative to it right. So what are the options for a system, a mechanism for more robustly enforcing these ethics rules. So almost everybody seems to agree that a binding ethics code for supreme court justices would be a good idea, and what does that? What does that mean exactly a fine ethics code. First of what we have now, that's exactly the question: is everyone mouths these words and I guess what does the work in the phrase is binding,

What binding seems to me is enforceable, and then the question is well. Who is going to do with the enforcing everyone idea is one of the other two branches, either the executive branch or congress, and what might that conceivably? Look like well. Congress could pass a tougher laws and could instruct the supreme court to enact its own ethics regulations and congress has other tools congress has in appropriations power over the court's budget right their powers that they pay for the functioning and the salaries of the justices on the court. That's right and then congress could now. This is getting fairly fanciful, impeach a justice for an ethical violation, so

In theory the tools exist and word about the executive branch. Well, the executive branch could penalized or prosecutes violations of ethics laws- and this is true of financial disclosures. In theory, the department of justice could penalized adjusted for failing to disclose gifts and other stuff and what would penetration perhaps but like well, I think the ethics in government act- if I have this right- allows penalties of around seventy thousand dollars. Four wilful violations of the disclosure requirements. Have you? No? I mean we can spin out these hypothetical scenarios, it's very hard to imagine them happening and at least some of them may be all of them test the separation of powers, the idea that

one branch should be able to tell the other branch what to do. Let's linger on that firm, and I understand the idea in theory that there are three branches, a government in their all independent, but the executive and legislative branches are constantly getting into each other's business all day long. Why is there hesitation and those two branches suddenly intervening in the judicial branch. I think you have to make a distinction. Most people would agree that the other branches should not have anything to say about the court's judicial conduct about how it decides disputes there. It really should be independent how it rules on cases right, but its non judicial conduct, its

Jet setting lifestyle, its conflict of interests, its failure to reduce or not, I dont think that those are subjects that the separation of powers disables, either the executive branch or congress for addressing so the only thing holding the executive and congressional branches back from doing this may just be a historical, all sense that it shouldn't metal in the judiciary, but you're saying there is a logical space for them to start to intervene and its around. Basically, forcing ethics was yes, that's right. On the other hand, this discussion is theoretical and tinged with partisanship theoretical, because it pretty hard to imagine that this polarized congress is going to take any action and then partisan

has. Increasingly, this discussion is being framed by republicans as unhappiness by liberals about the court's rulings and what they would call a partisan, a job against a justice they ve never cared for clarence thomas and that the court ought to be trusted to make its own decisions. How do you know what you are reflect is the republican claim that this ethics discussion is kind of really just a level of upset with this court?

masquerading as meaning a high minded worry about the justices conduct, but I think to inhabit the Democrats. Side of this, they would simply say, is not our fault that all these ethical questions are being raised. Around conservative justices, it's their conduct that has created that problem right and republicans might say back that. Is it a coincidence that after the supreme court does away with the constitutional right to abortion, enraging part of the nation, there is much more intensive scrutiny of the justices conduct. In particular, the conduct of the justice is on the right. Rights of this is kind of an endless chicken and egg situation which came first there. Ok, so we ve been talking about the two branches of

women potentially intervening in the judiciary but there's another right, which is that there could be an internal judicial enforcement mechanism inside or around the supreme court. Correct I mean the judicial branch couldn't do stuff, it couldn t This figure out a way to get rulings, maybe even non binding rulings but advisory opinions, something from somebody other than the justice him or herself could be an inspector general, an ombudsman, a panel of respected retired judges, somebody other than the justice him or herself to say this conduct is proper. This conduct is not so the justices would have

authorize the creation of such a body to be housed within the judiciary. That, let's be honest, would start to officially second guess and enforce the justices. Ethical behaviour right. So they're not gonna, be inclined to do that and at some point it may become problematic, because if that body has actual enforcement power over the supreme word that's gonna strike. The court is not only odd, but maybe intention with the car the solution which imagines that the supreme court, the supreme? I would hope that, in the face of sophisticated guidance from the ombudsman are paler judges or whatever most justices,

most of the time will say. Listen I may agree I may disagree, but I'm not going to imperil the reputation of my institution and I'm going to abide by that judgment, so any option would rely on the good will and a good graces of justice is so in a way it's still kind of a version of the current system of self policing. That's right! It's a puzzle about how to enforce ethics rules in a body It is charged with being the final decision maker on all manner of things, but neither nine smart people if they really want to solve the problem. They could hey keyword there if they really want

to solve the problem, and so far we haven't seen any evidence that these justices want to firm up the ethical rules around them, and I think what they think is that all of this stuff is a distraction. The real question is: is any of this activity causing them to vote differently than the otherwise would have voted and clarence thomas may have taken all manner of gifts and transactions from arlene crow and may Christ, ethical lines, but I dont know that a lot of people think that clarence thomas is voting differently because of this relationship. Where he's a committed conservative with- and it is incredible but consistent judicial philosophy and the court probably things that, until you get to the point where someone is actually being bribed to change your vote,

you don't have an authentic probable, fair point, but that's perhaps not be real. issue here at a right. The real issue is whether we have faith that the justices are living according to the rules right: whether they are unbuyable and conforming to the law, and I think what- Learning here is that the really isn't a practical scenario? in which these rules get enforced any I'm soon beyond the justices own decision to follow the rules other than the pressure they may be facing from other journalism that we have been describing there- there is now a kind of a full time industry of investigations going on in their behaviour, and the question is: is that going to be sufficient to change anything? So a few things the bar shouldn't be my complying with the law.

The bar should be. Am I holding myself to the highest possible ethical standards, because I have life tenure on the united states supreme court and nobody should be able to question my judgment. So there should be some power of shame. There should be some power of saying in a late night. Comedians are making fun of me. May they have a point. The average american thinks it's unseemly in the extreme to be hobnob was a billionaire on his luxury yacht, whose a big republican donor, who has all kinds of ideological interests- and maybe you know what maybe I should do that thing I to do which is getting. My rv, as clarence thomas likes to say,

and hang out in the wall parking lot with ordinary people? People and that's that's a great look, but it turns out. That's not the only look so maybe put aside mechanisms and separation of powers and ethics rules and statutes. Maybe what we can laura is what is what these revelations will cause the court to do. Maybe I'm too optimistic is to take stock and just being better just present yourselves to the american people as a body. That's not capable of being influenced I outlandish gifts from billionaires bottom. Thank you very much appreciated. Thank you, Michael, since we without a new questions about the conduct of supreme court. Justices have arisen

the washington post reported that in twenty twelve, a problem Conservative activist arranged for jobs, just how mrs wife jenny to receive twenty five thousand dollars from a non profit with business before the court paperwork reviewed by the post showed that the activist sought to conceal the fact that the money was intended mrs thomas, instructing that there be quote no mention of jenny. Meanwhile, the daily wire report that justice, Sonia suddenly or decline? To accuse herself from multiple copyright infringement cases involving the book? Publisher, penguin, random house display? the fact that the publisher has paid suddenly are millions of dollars

you write a series of books what right back Here's what else you need to know that we are here to crown a king, and we a king to serve in a sullen which that stretches back more than among many charles, the third was crowned as king. On saturday, after serving as the designated successor for longer than anyone in the history of the british monarchy, I chose do solemnly and sincerely in the presence of god, profess, testify and declare.

diamond face for products that I will, according to the true intent of the enactments, we secure the protests in succession to the throne, uphold and maintain the said enactments to the best of my pose? According to law,. during the service, the first coordination since that of his mother, queen Elizabeth, the second in nineteen. Fifty three charles was anointed with wholly oil and fitted with a crown that features two thousand eight hundred and see he eight diamonds. Two hundred and sixty nine pause said Eighteen sapphires and own levin, emeralds god,

the king moments later, the archbishop of canterbury invited the british people to celebrate their new in the to these episode was produced, by mary was robs if go and Nina filled me with him from will read and clear tennis getter. It was edited by rachel quester withheld from lisa chow and mark george, such by Susan Lee, contain original music by dan power and marion lozano and was engineered by Chris. Would our theme, music is by doomed run and then landfolk of wonderland. That's it for the daily I'm likeable bar see

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