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Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Brussel from Bloomberg Radio

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Speaker 1: Complete Chaos at the Capitol on January sixth, amateur historians

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Speaker 1: of the Kennedy assassination only had twenty six seconds of

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Speaker 1: the sub Bruder film to study. What a motley assortment

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Speaker 1: of Internet sleuths have reams of footage from January six

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Speaker 1: to analyze. They call themselves the sedition Hunters, a community

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Speaker 1: of ordinary people turned Internet sleuths who've spent hundreds of

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Speaker 1: hours examining the videos, sharing cross referencing, and dissecting information

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Speaker 1: on Twitter or in private group jets to bolster the

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Speaker 1: FBI's official inquiry. Joining me is Bloomberg Legal reporter David

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Speaker 1: Yaffee Bellini. David tell us a little about Chris Siggerson. So,

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Speaker 1: Chris Stoherson is an out of work actor in Canada.

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Speaker 1: I think, like a lot of people during the pandemic,

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Speaker 1: he struggled to find full time work, kind of trying

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Speaker 1: to figure out what to do. He adopted a lot

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Speaker 1: of the common pandemic pastimes, like making sour dough bread

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Speaker 1: and renovating his house and that kind of thing to

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Speaker 1: try to kill time. Then we get to January six,

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Speaker 1: and like so many people around the world, he's just

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Speaker 1: transfixed by what's happening at the Capitol, appalled, outraged, and

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Speaker 1: also sort of curious and wants to learn more about

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Speaker 1: what had happened and what the origins of it were.

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Speaker 1: So pretty early on in the weeks after January six,

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Speaker 1: Chris Sigerson joined a kind of sort of loose network

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Speaker 1: of people who soon labeled themselves sedition hunters, and what

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Speaker 1: they did basically was sort through the reams of footage

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Speaker 1: and photographs that emerged from the Capitol riot to try

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Speaker 1: to figure out who was there and what those people did.

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Speaker 1: So the simplest form of that was just identifications. You know,

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Speaker 1: here are three different crowd photos, and look, I've identified

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Speaker 1: the same person in each of the shots. So it's

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Speaker 1: clear that originally they were just part of the Capital

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Speaker 1: and then they broke through these doors and they were

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Speaker 1: in the main verse. And that that's the type of

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Speaker 1: work that these people were doing. And in some cases

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Speaker 1: they'd share their work publicly on Twitter, and other cases

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Speaker 1: they send it straight to the SBI or to investigative

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Speaker 1: journalists who are looking into the riot. And that was

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Speaker 1: the kind of initial wave of activism from these groups

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Speaker 1: where people arrested because of this information they found. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean the way I became aware of these addition

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Speaker 1: hunting efforts is that I spent a lot of my

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Speaker 1: day reading through the arrest affidavits that are released every

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Speaker 1: time of Capital rioters is charged in federal court in Washington,

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Speaker 1: and so I started to notice these references to online

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Speaker 1: sedition hunting efforts. And that's because the sets were giving

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Speaker 1: credit to these online flutes, saying you know, look, this

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Speaker 1: person identified these three photos of the same guy and

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Speaker 1: in the red mack a hat who entered the capital,

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Speaker 1: and that allowed us to build up enough evidence to

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Speaker 1: arrest him. And so, yeah, they've been really amazingly successful

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Speaker 1: in kind of achieving concrete results. Is the FBI using

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Speaker 1: the footage that these sedition hunters are isolating. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: in some cases there were images that were isolated by

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Speaker 1: the stition hunters that have been used by the FBI.

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Speaker 1: In other cases, the FBI will release a really clear

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Speaker 1: image of somebody in the sgian hunters will identify that

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Speaker 1: person in other videos and say, oh, look, you know

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Speaker 1: that person who you photographed walking into the Capitol was

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Speaker 1: also in this group that was spraying police officers. That

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Speaker 1: was the type of thing that these sort of slews

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Speaker 1: were trying to figure out. And since then, that's it's

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Speaker 1: evolved in the kind of more ambitious projects. I mean,

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Speaker 1: there are still people out there who yet to be identified,

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Speaker 1: and they're still online position hunters working on that. But

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Speaker 1: you've also got people who, having court through hundreds of

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Speaker 1: hours of footage over the course of months, are now

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Speaker 1: trying to figure out, like, what did this particular group

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Speaker 1: of Proud Boys do at the Capitol? Were they mobilizing

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Speaker 1: in a certain way block exits and prevent people from escaping.

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Speaker 1: Could that be a sign of coordination and planning, and

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Speaker 1: can I build a broader narrative about what did that

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Speaker 1: could help the FBI charge them with something more serious

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Speaker 1: like conspiracy. That's the type of work that's happening now.

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Speaker 1: Are they doing it because they like being amateur sleuths

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Speaker 1: or do they have deeper reasons? I think you've got

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Speaker 1: a mixture of motivation that there are certainly people who

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Speaker 1: just felt a kind of righteous outrage when they saw

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Speaker 1: the video of the storming of the capital in January

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Speaker 1: six and who just wanted to contribute to some effort

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Speaker 1: to hold people responsibles who felt like they had a

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Speaker 1: kind of civic obligation to help out. And there's a feeling,

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Speaker 1: especially now that Republicans and Congress have blocked the formation

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Speaker 1: of an independent bipartisan commission to investigate the capital riots,

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Speaker 1: that this might be one of the only ways to

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Speaker 1: hold people responsible. These sorts of informal techniques. Then there

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Speaker 1: are people who are just really fascinated on kind of

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Speaker 1: a nerdy level by the technical challenges of sorting through

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Speaker 1: all this stuff. You know, how to you organize hundreds

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Speaker 1: of hours of footage so it's easily searchable. How do

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Speaker 1: you create a database of these images so that people

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Speaker 1: who are doing those more complicated projects have somewhere to go?

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Speaker 1: You know, how do you mobilize these disparate efforts and

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Speaker 1: kind of channeled onto something really productive. So there are people,

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Speaker 1: I think who were drawn to it for that reason. Then,

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Speaker 1: you know, I think the pandemic played a role as well.

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Speaker 1: Like I was saying with Chris Dickerson, people had more

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Speaker 1: time on their hands, they might be out of work,

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Speaker 1: and they were able to dedicate times they wouldn't have

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Speaker 1: been in an ordinary year. That resorted efforts, so it's

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Speaker 1: really been a kind of wide range of things that's

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Speaker 1: sort of fueling the sedition hunting and some websites have

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Speaker 1: popped up, like sedition hunters dot org and jan six

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Speaker 1: Evidence dot com, and they have a lot of information.

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Speaker 1: They're well designed and often feature pretty complex and sophisticated tools.

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Speaker 1: I mean, one of these websites has a map where

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Speaker 1: basically fits of video footage have been matched with specific

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Speaker 1: GPS coordinates around the capital, so you can, you know,

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Speaker 1: navigate to the east side of the capital and locate

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Speaker 1: all the footage that was taken in that geographic area.

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Speaker 1: And one of the people I talked to is working

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Speaker 1: on a due feature for that map which would enable

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Speaker 1: users to sort of plug in new video as they

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Speaker 1: find it. To think it's moderated so that this map

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Speaker 1: is a kind of crowdsource thing that's constantly growing. Um

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Speaker 1: there's also a website that has the Facial Recognition Database

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Speaker 1: where you can drag and drop a photo and then

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Speaker 1: it will turn off other photos taken on January six

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Speaker 1: that appear to feature the same people, kind of allowing

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Speaker 1: you to do that cross referencing work that would otherwise

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Speaker 1: be pretty strenuous and time consuming. There is also a

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Speaker 1: website that had a kind of gallery of the suspects

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Speaker 1: with the best possible photos of to them, with hashtags

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Speaker 1: that identify them, that make it easy for people in

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Speaker 1: the online discourse to have the same sort of set

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Speaker 1: of reference and say, you know, oh look it's hashtag

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Speaker 1: red maga guy who's here? And even this other photo

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Speaker 1: as well. There have been some mistakes and false steps

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Speaker 1: made by the sedition hunters. Yes, there are major potential

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Speaker 1: tip faults with any crowdsourcing effort like this. If you

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Speaker 1: think back to the Boston Marathon bombing, when Reddit users

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Speaker 1: misidentified a suspect, that's the sort of risk the doubt

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Speaker 1: there when you have untrained, essentially vigilantes conducting the sort

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Speaker 1: of work in public. And so, yes, there was a

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Speaker 1: retired firefighter from Chicago who was falsely accused online of

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Speaker 1: participating in the riot. Actually he's hundreds of miles away

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Speaker 1: doing nothing. That's the type Chuck Norris was falsely accused

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Speaker 1: of being there as well. But I think for the

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Speaker 1: most part, these groups have done a pretty good job

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Speaker 1: of limiting the amount of misidentification that goes on, and

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Speaker 1: that's partly because they've learned from situations with the Boston

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Speaker 1: marathon bombing, and these sorts of efforts have matured over

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Speaker 1: the last decade. So you have major Twitter accounts that

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Speaker 1: are organizing and mobilizing these efforts, saying to their followers,

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Speaker 1: don't identify anybody publicly. You can refer to them by

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Speaker 1: their hashtags. That everybody in the community knows who you're

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Speaker 1: talking about. Is that you can lay both different photos

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Speaker 1: that's featuring the same person. But once you think you've

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Speaker 1: identified this person by name, and send that information to

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Speaker 1: the FBI or to an investigative journalists, to somebody who

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Speaker 1: think do the final work of fact checking. And you know,

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Speaker 1: for the most parts of these groups have stuck to that.

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Speaker 1: But look, it's an expansive network of people, some of

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Speaker 1: whom were untrained, and you can't control everybody or stop

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Speaker 1: people from breaking the rules, and some of them, maybe

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Speaker 1: all of them, have fears themselves of being identified. Explain

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Speaker 1: why a lot of people got into this, not for

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Speaker 1: personal glory, but just because they wanted to participate in

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Speaker 1: something like this and make a difference and fulfill some

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Speaker 1: sort of civic obligation. And so they kind of shy

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Speaker 1: away from the limelight, and also I think rightly fear

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Speaker 1: that were they to be publicly identified, they could be

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Speaker 1: harassed online by Trump supporters or right wing groups could

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Speaker 1: attempt to dock them to undermine their work in some way,

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Speaker 1: And so a lot of the people that I talked

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Speaker 1: to preferred not to be named, which was completely understandable.

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Speaker 1: How many hours of day did they work at this,

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Speaker 1: because it must have taken a mental toll for some

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Speaker 1: of them looking at these videos hour after hour. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's arranged. I mean I talked to stay at home

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Speaker 1: mom in the Pacific Northwest who would basically just spend

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Speaker 1: a few hours every evening working on it once she

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Speaker 1: was done with her regular daily obligations. But Chris diggrettson

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Speaker 1: an actor in Canada because he was out of work

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Speaker 1: with spending forty hours a week on this for the

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Speaker 1: first three months. Now, for some people, they've piled it

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Speaker 1: back as they've moved on from that kind of initial

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Speaker 1: rush of sorting through the footage and identifying people to

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Speaker 1: the harder work of putting together these more complex conspiracy narratives.

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Speaker 1: But you've still got people spending hours hours a day

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Speaker 1: on this and there's still a kind of fast community

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Speaker 1: that's fascinated by the riot. You describe it in your

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Speaker 1: story as an Internet subculture. How many people are involved

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Speaker 1: in this, I mean, is it hundreds, is it thousands?

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Speaker 1: That's sort of tough to estimate. I mean, if you

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Speaker 1: were looking at the total number of people who were

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Speaker 1: doing any form of tradition hunting at any point since

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Speaker 1: January six, I'm sure it's in the thousands. The number

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Speaker 1: who are still consideredly working on it is definitely much smaller,

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Speaker 1: but it's still a kind of vibrant community that has

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Speaker 1: its own sort of lingo and a set of hashtag

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Speaker 1: that it uses to communicate with each other. And it's

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Speaker 1: become a really statisticated effort. Like I said, they've created

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Speaker 1: this kind of online infrastructure, map, photo gallery, spacial recognition

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Speaker 1: databases that members of the community can use to do

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Speaker 1: these types of projects, which are becoming increasingly complicated in nature.

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Speaker 1: You also have various academics who are starting to explore

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Speaker 1: January six related issues in more details. And so there's

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Speaker 1: this kind of vibrant subculture that's forming around January six.

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Speaker 1: You know, you can almost parallel it something like the

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Speaker 1: Kennedy assassination and the sort of culture of obsessives that

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Speaker 1: developed around that. I mean, here you've got people sort

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Speaker 1: of fixating on the historical event and trying to understand

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Speaker 1: it is that they can and to fill in the

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Speaker 1: gaps that the government may have left it in its

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Speaker 1: own investigations. It's just fascinating. Thanks, David. That's Bloomberg Legal

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Speaker 1: reporter David Jaffee Bellini. The first of President Joe Biden's

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Speaker 1: judicial nominees were easily confirmed this week, beginning what Democrats

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Speaker 1: who control the Senate have promised will be a fast

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Speaker 1: moving effort to approve his picks for the federal bench.

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Speaker 1: Joining me is Carl Tobias, a professor at the University

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Speaker 1: of Richmond Law School, tell us about Julian Nils and

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Speaker 1: Regina Rodriguez. They were the first two district nominees who

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Speaker 1: were confirmed. Judge Nils will fill one of six vacancies

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Speaker 1: that's an emergency in the district of New Jersey. He's

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Speaker 1: a long time lawyer in the district who was an

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Speaker 1: Obama nominee but was never given a final vote. We

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Speaker 1: nominated by Biden and confirmed pretty overwhelmingly six to thirty.

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Speaker 1: Three to fill that emergency. And so that's great in

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Speaker 1: terms of the priority that was set by confirming him.

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Speaker 1: The emergencies need to be filled in New Jersey is

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Speaker 1: in an extreme situation because of the caseloads and the

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Speaker 1: many vacancies. Rodriguez was confirmed for the District of Colorado,

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Speaker 1: and I believe she fills an emergency as well. She

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Speaker 1: also was a nominee President Obama, but did not get

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Speaker 1: a hearing or committee vote. And she has been a

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Speaker 1: federal prosecutor as well as a partner in a major

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Speaker 1: law firm and done all kinds of interesting work in

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Speaker 1: the federal courts. It's interesting that neither of these got

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Speaker 1: votes in the Senate when they were nominated by Barack Obama,

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Speaker 1: but they did get Republican votes this time around. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And I think I speak to the quality of the nominees.

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Speaker 1: They're both highly qualified, mainstream nominees with a lot of experience,

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Speaker 1: and so Republicans don't really have a very good reason

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Speaker 1: to vote again, and so that's why you see relatively

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Speaker 1: bipartisan votes still. I mean, there were Republicans who voted no, um,

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Speaker 1: but they may just vote no on anyone unless the

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Speaker 1: person is perfect. Uh, that's what I think you see reflected.

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Speaker 1: But I would consider those votes for both of them

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Speaker 1: to be bipartisan. Uh, and strongly so. Senate Majority Leader

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Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer has teed up votes to limit debates on

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Speaker 1: Judge Katangi Brown Jackson, and say, Karashi, why is he

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Speaker 1: limiting debate because he can't get unanimous consent? You need

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Speaker 1: all hundred Senators to agree or not oppose before you

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Speaker 1: cut off debate, and because some Republicans are withholding their consent,

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Speaker 1: you have to have a cloture vote. Those have been

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Speaker 1: used pretty frequently, both by Democrats with Trump nominees as

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Speaker 1: well as Republicans, and it's fairly standard. But there are

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Speaker 1: fifty votes if all the Democrats vote, and so there

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Speaker 1: shouldn't be an issue. So I think both Judge Jackson

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Speaker 1: and Judge Kareshi, who's a magistrate judge in New Jersey,

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Speaker 1: will have affirmative cloture votes, and then Karashi will have

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Speaker 1: a confirmation vote later today after two hours of debate.

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Speaker 1: You need thirty hours of debate for Judge Jackson because

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Speaker 1: she's a nominee to the DC Circuit. Of all the

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Speaker 1: Biden nominees, Totanji Brown Jackson is the one that I

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Speaker 1: think most people know about. Tell us why, Well, she's

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Speaker 1: been a district judge. President Obama appointed her in two

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Speaker 1: douzen thirteen. She's had a number of high profile cases.

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Speaker 1: One that most people talk about involved the subpoena for

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Speaker 1: Don McGann's testimony, where she wrote, I think a hundred

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Speaker 1: page opinion and she had had a very strong hearing,

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Speaker 1: answered clearly and comprehensively all of the question from both

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Speaker 1: sides of the aisle. And President Biden has promised to

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Speaker 1: name a black woman to the first vacancy that he filled,

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Speaker 1: and most people, let's say that she is the front

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Speaker 1: runner for that position. Also, the DC Circuit is the

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Speaker 1: second most important court in the country because of the

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Speaker 1: kinds of cases that appears on appeal. Senate Judiciary Committee

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Speaker 1: Chair Dick Durbin pushed back on the Republican litmus test

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Speaker 1: for nominees that they must be originalists. Explain what originalism

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Speaker 1: is and why the Republicans are so adamant about it

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Speaker 1: at this point. Well, what Republicans are having about is

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Speaker 1: a good question, and I think even strong originalists disagree

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Speaker 1: about exactly what the definition is. But I think general

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Speaker 1: notion is that originalists believe that you try to apply

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Speaker 1: the Constitution away that the framers of the Constitution would

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Speaker 1: have understood what they were doing in seventeen eighty nine,

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Speaker 1: and so that is somewhat controversial. But most people do

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Speaker 1: also agree that you look at what the original meaning

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Speaker 1: might have been to the extent you can tell what

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Speaker 1: it is. But others say that the Constitution is a

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Speaker 1: document that's meant to endure for over centuries, as it has.

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Speaker 1: And of course there are amendments, as Chuck Grassley said

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Speaker 1: and yesterday as a retort to the chair saying, all

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Speaker 1: of those amendments like the thirteen, fourteen and fifteen amendments,

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Speaker 1: also must be looked at in terms of the original

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Speaker 1: intent of the amendment strap and that's what the debate

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Speaker 1: is about. Carl. When did originals become a doctrine of

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Speaker 1: such importance to Republicans? I don't recall questions about originalism

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Speaker 1: being so important and Supreme Court confirmation hearings years ago

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Speaker 1: as compared to today, well, I think it is relatively

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Speaker 1: recent um and I think, for example, Justice Scalia was

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Speaker 1: a strong proponent of originalism as to have been others. UM.

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Speaker 1: And I think probably uh, partly it reflected some response

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Speaker 1: to the Warren Courts Juris Britain. Um. Since you know

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Speaker 1: the nifties, nineteen sixties, seventies, UM. You know when um

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Speaker 1: the for four fifth and sixth amendments and others uh,

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Speaker 1: fourteenth Amendments were um read somewhat broadly. UM. And so

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Speaker 1: there is in part originalism is a response to that. UM.

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Speaker 1: But as Durban said and others have said, uh, in

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Speaker 1: talking about originalism, UM, we know what the history of

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Speaker 1: the country was and and what the constitution looked like. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And indeed women uh and African Americans were excluded really

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Speaker 1: right because they didn't have votes and and slavery was

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Speaker 1: written into the constitution until eighteen o eight. And so

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Speaker 1: I think that's part of the response there. And of

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Speaker 1: course women got the vote in nineteen or twice. So

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Speaker 1: can you be an originalist and be what's considered a

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Speaker 1: liberal judge, I don't know. Are there any well? Sure?

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Speaker 1: I mean, I do think even the justices like Kagan,

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Speaker 1: uh and Soto, Mayor and Brier would say that you

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Speaker 1: do look at the meaning originally, but they're not going

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Speaker 1: to feel bound by what the understanding was at the

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Speaker 1: time of the adoption of the Constitution, that's not all

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Speaker 1: you look at, but you know, I think it's They

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Speaker 1: would even agree, and many people who are moderate or

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Speaker 1: centrist or even liberal would agree that you still start

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Speaker 1: with the words and and understandings perhaps at the time

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Speaker 1: of adoption and then but again, as Marcel and others

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Speaker 1: said from the Supreme Court um that the Constitution is

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Speaker 1: a document for all times, and there has to be

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Speaker 1: some flexibility in terms of understandings at the time and

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Speaker 1: different understandings today as the nation evolved. At this hearing,

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Speaker 1: there were Unice Lely, who's nominated the Second Circuit, and

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Speaker 1: Veronica ross And who's nominated to the Tenth Circuit, tell

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Speaker 1: us about their backgrounds. Well. Biden pledged as a candidate

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Speaker 1: and sinned to nominate and confirm people whom are diverse

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Speaker 1: in terms of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, ideology, and experience,

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Speaker 1: and the White House Council, thea Remus and the President

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Speaker 1: have stressed that with their first set of nominees and

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Speaker 1: the subsequent ones, the two who were for the appeals courts,

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Speaker 1: they both have law pretty long records as federal public

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Speaker 1: defenders and so they're basically criminal defense attorneys, and that

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Speaker 1: reflects experiential diversity that is sometimes lacking. For example, in

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Speaker 1: the second Circuit, Lee would be the only person who

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Speaker 1: brings that experience is to that important court. And so

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Speaker 1: that's what you see reflected in those two nominations. It's

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Speaker 1: no secret that many judges on both the district and

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Speaker 1: appellate bench in the federal system our former prosecutors usually

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Speaker 1: in U. S. Attorney offices, but uh, they overwhelmingly out

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Speaker 1: number the federal public defenders or are their criminal defense attorneys.

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Speaker 1: So trying to have some balance there in terms of experience,

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Speaker 1: and so that's what you see reflected in the backgrounds

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Speaker 1: of those two nominees. The Republicans on the committee were

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Speaker 1: focused on how these nominees with experience primarily in criminal cases,

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Speaker 1: would fair in cases involved in civil litigation, which is

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Speaker 1: more common on the appellate level. Does that really matter, Well,

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Speaker 1: that's a good question. There were some questions, especially from

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Speaker 1: Senator Cotton, about experiencing civil litigation, and I don't think

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Speaker 1: that there is a real problem here. Many people go

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Speaker 1: on the bench, both at the circuit and district level,

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Speaker 1: who come from a predominantly civil or predominantly criminal background,

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Speaker 1: and so the questions always asked or often asked by senators, um,

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Speaker 1: if you haven't engaged in that kind of practice, can

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Speaker 1: you um master the other times a practice? And to

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Speaker 1: me it's more critical perhaps at the district level than

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Speaker 1: it would be at the pellate level. And even the

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Speaker 1: questions that we're asked, for example, by Senator Cotton are

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Speaker 1: ones that are pretty basic that, um, you know, require

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Speaker 1: you to look either at the Constitution or the federal

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Speaker 1: rules of civil procedure, for example. And so I don't

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Speaker 1: think there is a problem that warrants a no vote. UM.

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Speaker 1: We'll see what happens, but I think that the senators

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Speaker 1: are probing, um, whether people have relevant experience. Rossman, on

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Speaker 1: the other hand, did say that she had engaged in

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Speaker 1: some civil practice prior to becoming a federal public defender.

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Speaker 1: So that's that's the issue, And I think most senators

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Speaker 1: are satisfied that Lee is extremely intelligent and done incredible

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Speaker 1: work as a federal public defender state public defender for

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Speaker 1: a couple of decades. Republican Senator John Kennedy was very

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Speaker 1: critical of Lee because she said she doesn't have a

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Speaker 1: personal judicial philosophy, and he said, you're going to be

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Speaker 1: on the United States Court of Appeals if you're confirmed,

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Speaker 1: and you don't have a judicial philosophy about how the

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Speaker 1: United States Constitution should be interpreted. I mean, do you

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Speaker 1: need to have a judicial philosophy? Well, a lot of

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Speaker 1: people think you don't necessarily have to have one. And

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Speaker 1: he really wasn't very clear about what he meant uh

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Speaker 1: in asking a question, and so the nominee I think

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Speaker 1: wasn't sufficiently responsive to him what he wanted. But I

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Speaker 1: think he was looking for a commitment. Are you an originalist?

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Speaker 1: And that's in a way an unfair question um in

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Speaker 1: the sense that you can't answer it in a way

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Speaker 1: that necessarily satisfies the question to some extent, because it

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Speaker 1: it's subtle, and originalism means different things to different people.

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Speaker 1: And so I think she was saying basically that she

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Speaker 1: understands about conciitutional interpretation, but she doesn't have a philosophy

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Speaker 1: of it. She's not doesn't come to it as an

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Speaker 1: originalist or the other kind of epithet that conservatives often

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Speaker 1: used is the living Constitution. Kennedy didn't say that, but

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Speaker 1: I think it was implicit in his question, and again,

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Speaker 1: as durban point has pointed out, UM the Republican nominees

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Speaker 1: from Trump, Austen refused to answer the question. Questions of

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Speaker 1: that sort as well coming from Democrats about UM their philosophies.

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Speaker 1: So I think what we're seeing a lot of times

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Speaker 1: is just the reverse of what we saw with Trump

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Speaker 1: is Democrats are also being cautious and using UM the

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Speaker 1: same kind of defensive tactics to protect their nominee, which

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Speaker 1: shouldn't be surprised. The Senators who oversee the federal judiciary

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Speaker 1: are requesting ten years worth of travel records for Supreme

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Speaker 1: Court justices. Why the travel records in it? What are

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Speaker 1: they trying to do? Well? There was a letter that

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Speaker 1: came from Sheldon White, has his chairs the subcommittee of

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Speaker 1: the Judiciary Committee on Federal Courts oversight the acts in

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Speaker 1: Federal Rights and a center eternity as a ranking member

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Speaker 1: on that committee, the highest ranking Republicans, and they sent

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Speaker 1: a letter they want to have more transparency at the

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Speaker 1: court in terms of possible conflicts of interest, I think,

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Speaker 1: and perhaps some kind of standards or ethical code, which

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Speaker 1: of course does bind the lower federal court judges, but

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Speaker 1: there isn't this sort of same requirement at the Supreme

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Speaker 1: Court level. And so it's really, I think, an effort

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Speaker 1: to have more transparency around possible conflicts and astex questions

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Speaker 1: that might be at issue for the justices. There are

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Speaker 1: questions about that. It's ah and it's difficult. I think

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Speaker 1: that people like Justice Kagan and others have said that

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Speaker 1: Chief Justice Roberts is seriously considering whether it introduced a

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Speaker 1: conduct code for the Supreme Court justices, and that may

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Speaker 1: be a good idea, but there are concerns about separation

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Speaker 1: of powers. You know, how much should Congress require the

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court who comply with certain strictures that Senators might

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Speaker 1: think are important. They have to tread lightly, and it's

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Speaker 1: a delicate issue. I think that eventually something will be

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Speaker 1: put into place, because, of course, Keef Justice Roberts deeply

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Speaker 1: cares about the reputation of the Supreme Court and its

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Speaker 1: credibility with the American people. As an institutionalist, I think

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Speaker 1: why might be moved in that direction. So I think

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Speaker 1: that's what this initiative is about. More transparency at the

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court, perhaps more by way of ethics requirements. But

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Speaker 1: I don't know whether Congress is going to pass legislation

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Speaker 1: to that effect because of the separation of powers questions.

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Speaker 1: Thanks Carl. That's Professor Carl Tobis of the University of

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Speaker 1: Richmond Law School. And that's it for the sedition of

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