Richard Painter: "I did Alito’s ethics prep for his confirmation hearing. His new excuses are nonsense."

Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics lawyer from 2005 to 2007 who helped prepare Justices Roberts and Alito for their confirmation hearings, has published an op-ed commenting on "what went wrong?" or, more specifically, "Why today do so many Americans have far less confidence in the ethics of the Supreme Court than we did in 2006?"

You can read the full article here.  

Calling some of Alito's arguments "utter nonsense," Painter answers the question, partly, by concluding that "[t]he problem is that the justices interpret federal statutes that apply to themselves and ethics norms for judges as they see fit. And when their actions depart from generally accepted ethics practices, they claim that as an independent branch of government they can do whatever they want."

And then concludes as follows:

The Supreme Court cannot be the only branch of government without accountability to the other two. Just because the justices hold themselves to a lower ethical standard does not mean the public does. Reform must come, or Americans’ confidence in the court will plunge still further.

And that Congress can fix the issue by passing legislation installing an ethics lawyer and an inspector general for the Supreme Court. The inspector general would investigate and report to Congress on alleged violations of ethics rules by justices and other Supreme Court employees.