Ethics Complaint Against SCOTUS Justice Jackson Now Under Judicial Review, Group Says

United States Supreme Court Justices pose for their official portrait at the Supreme Court in Washington on Oct. 7, 2022. Alex Wong/Getty Images

A judiciary body will review an ethics complaint that was recently filed against U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and accused her of failing to disclose her husband’s consulting income, according to a conservative policy group.

The Committee on Financial Disclosures in the Judicial Conference confirmed that the complaint filed by the conservative Center for Renewing America is now under review and was sent to the Financial Disclosers Committee, said the center on Monday.

“We are hopeful that the Judicial Conference takes a long, hard look at the ethics concerns surrounding Justice Jackson and ensures there is not a double standard for justices,” former Trump official Russ Vought, the head of the Center for Renewing America, told Fox News Digital and other news outlets. He said that left-wing groups and Democrats have “turned a blind eye to actual indiscretions and appearances of corruption actively happening” and instead have focused on Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices.

In mid-December, Mr. Vought’s group filed a complaint with the Judicial Conference saying that the Biden-appointed Supreme Court justice did not report a portion of her husband’s malpractice consulting income for about a decade and called on the body to refer the complaint to Attorney General Merrick Garland to launch an investigation.

Justices and judges, it said, are required by law to disclose any sources of “earned income earned by a spouse from any person which exceed $1,000” and added that if the spouse is “self-employed” then only the “nature of such business or profession needs be reported.”

Years before her nomination to the U.S. high court, when she was named to a district court in Washington, it included her disclosure of two legal medical malpractice consulting clients who had paid her husband at least $1,000 more than a decade ago, according to the complaint. However, it added the caveat that Justice Jackson has “repeatedly failed to disclose that her husband received income from medical malpractice consulting fees” in other filings.

“We know this by Justice Jackson’s own admission in her amended disclosure form for 2020, filed when she was nominated to the Supreme Court, that ‘some of my previously filed reports inadvertently omitted’ her husband’s income from ‘consulting on medical malpractice cases,’” said the letter.

In the letter, Mr. Vought said that after 2011, she “never disclosed another source despite his having received such income in subsequent years,” adding that she is now allegedly trying to “describe her husband’s consulting work under the ‘self-employment’ exception in order to avoid disclosing the sources of her husband’s consulting income.”

The letter also stated there may be reason to suspect that Justice Jackson might have not reported funding sources for her “massive investiture celebration at the Library of Congress,” referring to the federal library’s large event in 2022 in her honor. It featured multiple musicians and other groups, according to reports.

Federal law requires judicial officers to disclose gifts that cost more than $415.11, the Center for Renewing America letter said. Her event at the Library of Congress “easily cost tens of thousands of dollars” or more, the letter added, saying that she needs to provide the identity of the sources under the law.

Neither the U.S. Supreme Court nor Justice Jackson have publicly responded to the allegations. The Epoch Times has contacted the court for comment.

Supreme Court Ethics Under Fire

It comes as the Supreme Court has faced ethical concerns and related questions after reports emerged that Justice Clarence Thomas allegedly received gifts from billionaire businessman Harlan Crow. Both have denied anything improper occurred.

Mr. Crow, a Texas real estate billionaire, rejected requests from congressional Democrats last year to hand over accounting of the alleged gifts, trips, and other travel accommodations, saying they lack authority to do so.

Mr. Crow’s lawyer told Senate Democrats that the inquiry “appears to be a component of a broader campaign against Justice Thomas.”

Last year, Justice Sonia Sotomayor was targeted in an Associated Press report in June, accusing her of pushing public institutions and schools to purchase her memoir as well as her children’s books. The report noted that she has amassed at least $3.7 million since joining the Supreme Court in 2009.

Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas attends the ceremonial swearing-in ceremony for Amy Coney Barrett to be the U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on Oct. 26, 2020. Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

At the time, Supreme Court pushed back on the AP report and said it works with the justices and their staff to make sure they are complying with all ethics guidelines.

Months later, in November, the court announced it adopted a code of ethics that included five canons on the justices’ conduct on a number of issues such as when they should recuse themselves in certain cases.

“The undersigned justices are promulgating this Code of Conduct to set out succinctly and gather in one place the ethics rules and principles that guide the conduct of the Members of the Court,” the justices said in a statement.