Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Brussel from Bloomberg Radio
Speaker 1: Complete Chaos at the Capitol on January sixth, amateur historians
Speaker 1: of the Kennedy assassination only had twenty six seconds of
Speaker 1: the sub Bruder film to study. What a motley assortment
Speaker 1: of Internet sleuths have reams of footage from January six
Speaker 1: to analyze. They call themselves the sedition Hunters, a community
Speaker 1: of ordinary people turned Internet sleuths who've spent hundreds of
Speaker 1: hours examining the videos, sharing cross referencing, and dissecting information
Speaker 1: on Twitter or in private group jets to bolster the
Speaker 1: FBI's official inquiry. Joining me is Bloomberg Legal reporter David
Speaker 1: Yaffee Bellini. David tell us a little about Chris Siggerson. So,
Speaker 1: Chris Stoherson is an out of work actor in Canada.
Speaker 1: I think, like a lot of people during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: he struggled to find full time work, kind of trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what to do. He adopted a lot
Speaker 1: of the common pandemic pastimes, like making sour dough bread
Speaker 1: and renovating his house and that kind of thing to
Speaker 1: try to kill time. Then we get to January six,
Speaker 1: and like so many people around the world, he's just
Speaker 1: transfixed by what's happening at the Capitol, appalled, outraged, and
Speaker 1: also sort of curious and wants to learn more about
Speaker 1: what had happened and what the origins of it were.
Speaker 1: So pretty early on in the weeks after January six,
Speaker 1: Chris Sigerson joined a kind of sort of loose network
Speaker 1: of people who soon labeled themselves sedition hunters, and what
Speaker 1: they did basically was sort through the reams of footage
Speaker 1: and photographs that emerged from the Capitol riot to try
Speaker 1: to figure out who was there and what those people did.
Speaker 1: So the simplest form of that was just identifications. You know,
Speaker 1: here are three different crowd photos, and look, I've identified
Speaker 1: the same person in each of the shots. So it's
Speaker 1: clear that originally they were just part of the Capital
Speaker 1: and then they broke through these doors and they were
Speaker 1: in the main verse. And that that's the type of
Speaker 1: work that these people were doing. And in some cases
Speaker 1: they'd share their work publicly on Twitter, and other cases
Speaker 1: they send it straight to the SBI or to investigative
Speaker 1: journalists who are looking into the riot. And that was
Speaker 1: the kind of initial wave of activism from these groups
Speaker 1: where people arrested because of this information they found. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the way I became aware of these addition
Speaker 1: hunting efforts is that I spent a lot of my
Speaker 1: day reading through the arrest affidavits that are released every
Speaker 1: time of Capital rioters is charged in federal court in Washington,
Speaker 1: and so I started to notice these references to online
Speaker 1: sedition hunting efforts. And that's because the sets were giving
Speaker 1: credit to these online flutes, saying you know, look, this
Speaker 1: person identified these three photos of the same guy and
Speaker 1: in the red mack a hat who entered the capital,
Speaker 1: and that allowed us to build up enough evidence to
Speaker 1: arrest him. And so, yeah, they've been really amazingly successful
Speaker 1: in kind of achieving concrete results. Is the FBI using
Speaker 1: the footage that these sedition hunters are isolating. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: in some cases there were images that were isolated by
Speaker 1: the stition hunters that have been used by the FBI.
Speaker 1: In other cases, the FBI will release a really clear
Speaker 1: image of somebody in the sgian hunters will identify that
Speaker 1: person in other videos and say, oh, look, you know
Speaker 1: that person who you photographed walking into the Capitol was
Speaker 1: also in this group that was spraying police officers. That
Speaker 1: was the type of thing that these sort of slews
Speaker 1: were trying to figure out. And since then, that's it's
Speaker 1: evolved in the kind of more ambitious projects. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are still people out there who yet to be identified,
Speaker 1: and they're still online position hunters working on that. But
Speaker 1: you've also got people who, having court through hundreds of
Speaker 1: hours of footage over the course of months, are now
Speaker 1: trying to figure out, like, what did this particular group
Speaker 1: of Proud Boys do at the Capitol? Were they mobilizing
Speaker 1: in a certain way block exits and prevent people from escaping.
Speaker 1: Could that be a sign of coordination and planning, and
Speaker 1: can I build a broader narrative about what did that
Speaker 1: could help the FBI charge them with something more serious
Speaker 1: like conspiracy. That's the type of work that's happening now.
Speaker 1: Are they doing it because they like being amateur sleuths
Speaker 1: or do they have deeper reasons? I think you've got
Speaker 1: a mixture of motivation that there are certainly people who
Speaker 1: just felt a kind of righteous outrage when they saw
Speaker 1: the video of the storming of the capital in January
Speaker 1: six and who just wanted to contribute to some effort
Speaker 1: to hold people responsibles who felt like they had a
Speaker 1: kind of civic obligation to help out. And there's a feeling,
Speaker 1: especially now that Republicans and Congress have blocked the formation
Speaker 1: of an independent bipartisan commission to investigate the capital riots,
Speaker 1: that this might be one of the only ways to
Speaker 1: hold people responsible. These sorts of informal techniques. Then there
Speaker 1: are people who are just really fascinated on kind of
Speaker 1: a nerdy level by the technical challenges of sorting through
Speaker 1: all this stuff. You know, how to you organize hundreds
Speaker 1: of hours of footage so it's easily searchable. How do
Speaker 1: you create a database of these images so that people
Speaker 1: who are doing those more complicated projects have somewhere to go?
Speaker 1: You know, how do you mobilize these disparate efforts and
Speaker 1: kind of channeled onto something really productive. So there are people,
Speaker 1: I think who were drawn to it for that reason. Then,
Speaker 1: you know, I think the pandemic played a role as well.
Speaker 1: Like I was saying with Chris Dickerson, people had more
Speaker 1: time on their hands, they might be out of work,
Speaker 1: and they were able to dedicate times they wouldn't have
Speaker 1: been in an ordinary year. That resorted efforts, so it's
Speaker 1: really been a kind of wide range of things that's
Speaker 1: sort of fueling the sedition hunting and some websites have
Speaker 1: popped up, like sedition hunters dot org and jan six
Speaker 1: Evidence dot com, and they have a lot of information.
Speaker 1: They're well designed and often feature pretty complex and sophisticated tools.
Speaker 1: I mean, one of these websites has a map where
Speaker 1: basically fits of video footage have been matched with specific
Speaker 1: GPS coordinates around the capital, so you can, you know,
Speaker 1: navigate to the east side of the capital and locate
Speaker 1: all the footage that was taken in that geographic area.
Speaker 1: And one of the people I talked to is working
Speaker 1: on a due feature for that map which would enable
Speaker 1: users to sort of plug in new video as they
Speaker 1: find it. To think it's moderated so that this map
Speaker 1: is a kind of crowdsource thing that's constantly growing. Um
Speaker 1: there's also a website that has the Facial Recognition Database
Speaker 1: where you can drag and drop a photo and then
Speaker 1: it will turn off other photos taken on January six
Speaker 1: that appear to feature the same people, kind of allowing
Speaker 1: you to do that cross referencing work that would otherwise
Speaker 1: be pretty strenuous and time consuming. There is also a
Speaker 1: website that had a kind of gallery of the suspects
Speaker 1: with the best possible photos of to them, with hashtags
Speaker 1: that identify them, that make it easy for people in
Speaker 1: the online discourse to have the same sort of set
Speaker 1: of reference and say, you know, oh look it's hashtag
Speaker 1: red maga guy who's here? And even this other photo
Speaker 1: as well. There have been some mistakes and false steps
Speaker 1: made by the sedition hunters. Yes, there are major potential
Speaker 1: tip faults with any crowdsourcing effort like this. If you
Speaker 1: think back to the Boston Marathon bombing, when Reddit users
Speaker 1: misidentified a suspect, that's the sort of risk the doubt
Speaker 1: there when you have untrained, essentially vigilantes conducting the sort
Speaker 1: of work in public. And so, yes, there was a
Speaker 1: retired firefighter from Chicago who was falsely accused online of
Speaker 1: participating in the riot. Actually he's hundreds of miles away
Speaker 1: doing nothing. That's the type Chuck Norris was falsely accused
Speaker 1: of being there as well. But I think for the
Speaker 1: most part, these groups have done a pretty good job
Speaker 1: of limiting the amount of misidentification that goes on, and
Speaker 1: that's partly because they've learned from situations with the Boston
Speaker 1: marathon bombing, and these sorts of efforts have matured over
Speaker 1: the last decade. So you have major Twitter accounts that
Speaker 1: are organizing and mobilizing these efforts, saying to their followers,
Speaker 1: don't identify anybody publicly. You can refer to them by
Speaker 1: their hashtags. That everybody in the community knows who you're
Speaker 1: talking about. Is that you can lay both different photos
Speaker 1: that's featuring the same person. But once you think you've
Speaker 1: identified this person by name, and send that information to
Speaker 1: the FBI or to an investigative journalists, to somebody who
Speaker 1: think do the final work of fact checking. And you know,
Speaker 1: for the most parts of these groups have stuck to that.
Speaker 1: But look, it's an expansive network of people, some of
Speaker 1: whom were untrained, and you can't control everybody or stop
Speaker 1: people from breaking the rules, and some of them, maybe
Speaker 1: all of them, have fears themselves of being identified. Explain
Speaker 1: why a lot of people got into this, not for
Speaker 1: personal glory, but just because they wanted to participate in
Speaker 1: something like this and make a difference and fulfill some
Speaker 1: sort of civic obligation. And so they kind of shy
Speaker 1: away from the limelight, and also I think rightly fear
Speaker 1: that were they to be publicly identified, they could be
Speaker 1: harassed online by Trump supporters or right wing groups could
Speaker 1: attempt to dock them to undermine their work in some way,
Speaker 1: And so a lot of the people that I talked
Speaker 1: to preferred not to be named, which was completely understandable.
Speaker 1: How many hours of day did they work at this,
Speaker 1: because it must have taken a mental toll for some
Speaker 1: of them looking at these videos hour after hour. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's arranged. I mean I talked to stay at home
Speaker 1: mom in the Pacific Northwest who would basically just spend
Speaker 1: a few hours every evening working on it once she
Speaker 1: was done with her regular daily obligations. But Chris diggrettson
Speaker 1: an actor in Canada because he was out of work
Speaker 1: with spending forty hours a week on this for the
Speaker 1: first three months. Now, for some people, they've piled it
Speaker 1: back as they've moved on from that kind of initial
Speaker 1: rush of sorting through the footage and identifying people to
Speaker 1: the harder work of putting together these more complex conspiracy narratives.
Speaker 1: But you've still got people spending hours hours a day
Speaker 1: on this and there's still a kind of fast community
Speaker 1: that's fascinated by the riot. You describe it in your
Speaker 1: story as an Internet subculture. How many people are involved
Speaker 1: in this, I mean, is it hundreds, is it thousands?
Speaker 1: That's sort of tough to estimate. I mean, if you
Speaker 1: were looking at the total number of people who were
Speaker 1: doing any form of tradition hunting at any point since
Speaker 1: January six, I'm sure it's in the thousands. The number
Speaker 1: who are still consideredly working on it is definitely much smaller,
Speaker 1: but it's still a kind of vibrant community that has
Speaker 1: its own sort of lingo and a set of hashtag
Speaker 1: that it uses to communicate with each other. And it's
Speaker 1: become a really statisticated effort. Like I said, they've created
Speaker 1: this kind of online infrastructure, map, photo gallery, spacial recognition
Speaker 1: databases that members of the community can use to do
Speaker 1: these types of projects, which are becoming increasingly complicated in nature.
Speaker 1: You also have various academics who are starting to explore
Speaker 1: January six related issues in more details. And so there's
Speaker 1: this kind of vibrant subculture that's forming around January six.
Speaker 1: You know, you can almost parallel it something like the
Speaker 1: Kennedy assassination and the sort of culture of obsessives that
Speaker 1: developed around that. I mean, here you've got people sort
Speaker 1: of fixating on the historical event and trying to understand
Speaker 1: it is that they can and to fill in the
Speaker 1: gaps that the government may have left it in its
Speaker 1: own investigations. It's just fascinating. Thanks, David. That's Bloomberg Legal
Speaker 1: reporter David Jaffee Bellini. The first of President Joe Biden's
Speaker 1: judicial nominees were easily confirmed this week, beginning what Democrats
Speaker 1: who control the Senate have promised will be a fast
Speaker 1: moving effort to approve his picks for the federal bench.
Speaker 1: Joining me is Carl Tobias, a professor at the University
Speaker 1: of Richmond Law School, tell us about Julian Nils and
Speaker 1: Regina Rodriguez. They were the first two district nominees who
Speaker 1: were confirmed. Judge Nils will fill one of six vacancies
Speaker 1: that's an emergency in the district of New Jersey. He's
Speaker 1: a long time lawyer in the district who was an
Speaker 1: Obama nominee but was never given a final vote. We
Speaker 1: nominated by Biden and confirmed pretty overwhelmingly six to thirty.
Speaker 1: Three to fill that emergency. And so that's great in
Speaker 1: terms of the priority that was set by confirming him.
Speaker 1: The emergencies need to be filled in New Jersey is
Speaker 1: in an extreme situation because of the caseloads and the
Speaker 1: many vacancies. Rodriguez was confirmed for the District of Colorado,
Speaker 1: and I believe she fills an emergency as well. She
Speaker 1: also was a nominee President Obama, but did not get
Speaker 1: a hearing or committee vote. And she has been a
Speaker 1: federal prosecutor as well as a partner in a major
Speaker 1: law firm and done all kinds of interesting work in
Speaker 1: the federal courts. It's interesting that neither of these got
Speaker 1: votes in the Senate when they were nominated by Barack Obama,
Speaker 1: but they did get Republican votes this time around. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think I speak to the quality of the nominees.
Speaker 1: They're both highly qualified, mainstream nominees with a lot of experience,
Speaker 1: and so Republicans don't really have a very good reason
Speaker 1: to vote again, and so that's why you see relatively
Speaker 1: bipartisan votes still. I mean, there were Republicans who voted no, um,
Speaker 1: but they may just vote no on anyone unless the
Speaker 1: person is perfect. Uh, that's what I think you see reflected.
Speaker 1: But I would consider those votes for both of them
Speaker 1: to be bipartisan. Uh, and strongly so. Senate Majority Leader
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer has teed up votes to limit debates on
Speaker 1: Judge Katangi Brown Jackson, and say, Karashi, why is he
Speaker 1: limiting debate because he can't get unanimous consent? You need
Speaker 1: all hundred Senators to agree or not oppose before you
Speaker 1: cut off debate, and because some Republicans are withholding their consent,
Speaker 1: you have to have a cloture vote. Those have been
Speaker 1: used pretty frequently, both by Democrats with Trump nominees as
Speaker 1: well as Republicans, and it's fairly standard. But there are
Speaker 1: fifty votes if all the Democrats vote, and so there
Speaker 1: shouldn't be an issue. So I think both Judge Jackson
Speaker 1: and Judge Kareshi, who's a magistrate judge in New Jersey,
Speaker 1: will have affirmative cloture votes, and then Karashi will have
Speaker 1: a confirmation vote later today after two hours of debate.
Speaker 1: You need thirty hours of debate for Judge Jackson because
Speaker 1: she's a nominee to the DC Circuit. Of all the
Speaker 1: Biden nominees, Totanji Brown Jackson is the one that I
Speaker 1: think most people know about. Tell us why, Well, she's
Speaker 1: been a district judge. President Obama appointed her in two
Speaker 1: douzen thirteen. She's had a number of high profile cases.
Speaker 1: One that most people talk about involved the subpoena for
Speaker 1: Don McGann's testimony, where she wrote, I think a hundred
Speaker 1: page opinion and she had had a very strong hearing,
Speaker 1: answered clearly and comprehensively all of the question from both
Speaker 1: sides of the aisle. And President Biden has promised to
Speaker 1: name a black woman to the first vacancy that he filled,
Speaker 1: and most people, let's say that she is the front
Speaker 1: runner for that position. Also, the DC Circuit is the
Speaker 1: second most important court in the country because of the
Speaker 1: kinds of cases that appears on appeal. Senate Judiciary Committee
Speaker 1: Chair Dick Durbin pushed back on the Republican litmus test
Speaker 1: for nominees that they must be originalists. Explain what originalism
Speaker 1: is and why the Republicans are so adamant about it
Speaker 1: at this point. Well, what Republicans are having about is
Speaker 1: a good question, and I think even strong originalists disagree
Speaker 1: about exactly what the definition is. But I think general
Speaker 1: notion is that originalists believe that you try to apply
Speaker 1: the Constitution away that the framers of the Constitution would
Speaker 1: have understood what they were doing in seventeen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: and so that is somewhat controversial. But most people do
Speaker 1: also agree that you look at what the original meaning
Speaker 1: might have been to the extent you can tell what
Speaker 1: it is. But others say that the Constitution is a
Speaker 1: document that's meant to endure for over centuries, as it has.
Speaker 1: And of course there are amendments, as Chuck Grassley said
Speaker 1: and yesterday as a retort to the chair saying, all
Speaker 1: of those amendments like the thirteen, fourteen and fifteen amendments,
Speaker 1: also must be looked at in terms of the original
Speaker 1: intent of the amendment strap and that's what the debate
Speaker 1: is about. Carl. When did originals become a doctrine of
Speaker 1: such importance to Republicans? I don't recall questions about originalism
Speaker 1: being so important and Supreme Court confirmation hearings years ago
Speaker 1: as compared to today, well, I think it is relatively
Speaker 1: recent um and I think, for example, Justice Scalia was
Speaker 1: a strong proponent of originalism as to have been others. UM.
Speaker 1: And I think probably uh, partly it reflected some response
Speaker 1: to the Warren Courts Juris Britain. Um. Since you know
Speaker 1: the nifties, nineteen sixties, seventies, UM. You know when um
Speaker 1: the for four fifth and sixth amendments and others uh,
Speaker 1: fourteenth Amendments were um read somewhat broadly. UM. And so
Speaker 1: there is in part originalism is a response to that. UM.
Speaker 1: But as Durban said and others have said, uh, in
Speaker 1: talking about originalism, UM, we know what the history of
Speaker 1: the country was and and what the constitution looked like. Uh.
Speaker 1: And indeed women uh and African Americans were excluded really
Speaker 1: right because they didn't have votes and and slavery was
Speaker 1: written into the constitution until eighteen o eight. And so
Speaker 1: I think that's part of the response there. And of
Speaker 1: course women got the vote in nineteen or twice. So
Speaker 1: can you be an originalist and be what's considered a
Speaker 1: liberal judge, I don't know. Are there any well? Sure?
Speaker 1: I mean, I do think even the justices like Kagan,
Speaker 1: uh and Soto, Mayor and Brier would say that you
Speaker 1: do look at the meaning originally, but they're not going
Speaker 1: to feel bound by what the understanding was at the
Speaker 1: time of the adoption of the Constitution, that's not all
Speaker 1: you look at, but you know, I think it's They
Speaker 1: would even agree, and many people who are moderate or
Speaker 1: centrist or even liberal would agree that you still start
Speaker 1: with the words and and understandings perhaps at the time
Speaker 1: of adoption and then but again, as Marcel and others
Speaker 1: said from the Supreme Court um that the Constitution is
Speaker 1: a document for all times, and there has to be
Speaker 1: some flexibility in terms of understandings at the time and
Speaker 1: different understandings today as the nation evolved. At this hearing,
Speaker 1: there were Unice Lely, who's nominated the Second Circuit, and
Speaker 1: Veronica ross And who's nominated to the Tenth Circuit, tell
Speaker 1: us about their backgrounds. Well. Biden pledged as a candidate
Speaker 1: and sinned to nominate and confirm people whom are diverse
Speaker 1: in terms of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, ideology, and experience,
Speaker 1: and the White House Council, thea Remus and the President
Speaker 1: have stressed that with their first set of nominees and
Speaker 1: the subsequent ones, the two who were for the appeals courts,
Speaker 1: they both have law pretty long records as federal public
Speaker 1: defenders and so they're basically criminal defense attorneys, and that
Speaker 1: reflects experiential diversity that is sometimes lacking. For example, in
Speaker 1: the second Circuit, Lee would be the only person who
Speaker 1: brings that experience is to that important court. And so
Speaker 1: that's what you see reflected in those two nominations. It's
Speaker 1: no secret that many judges on both the district and
Speaker 1: appellate bench in the federal system our former prosecutors usually
Speaker 1: in U. S. Attorney offices, but uh, they overwhelmingly out
Speaker 1: number the federal public defenders or are their criminal defense attorneys.
Speaker 1: So trying to have some balance there in terms of experience,
Speaker 1: and so that's what you see reflected in the backgrounds
Speaker 1: of those two nominees. The Republicans on the committee were
Speaker 1: focused on how these nominees with experience primarily in criminal cases,
Speaker 1: would fair in cases involved in civil litigation, which is
Speaker 1: more common on the appellate level. Does that really matter, Well,
Speaker 1: that's a good question. There were some questions, especially from
Speaker 1: Senator Cotton, about experiencing civil litigation, and I don't think
Speaker 1: that there is a real problem here. Many people go
Speaker 1: on the bench, both at the circuit and district level,
Speaker 1: who come from a predominantly civil or predominantly criminal background,
Speaker 1: and so the questions always asked or often asked by senators, um,
Speaker 1: if you haven't engaged in that kind of practice, can
Speaker 1: you um master the other times a practice? And to
Speaker 1: me it's more critical perhaps at the district level than
Speaker 1: it would be at the pellate level. And even the
Speaker 1: questions that we're asked, for example, by Senator Cotton are
Speaker 1: ones that are pretty basic that, um, you know, require
Speaker 1: you to look either at the Constitution or the federal
Speaker 1: rules of civil procedure, for example. And so I don't
Speaker 1: think there is a problem that warrants a no vote. UM.
Speaker 1: We'll see what happens, but I think that the senators
Speaker 1: are probing, um, whether people have relevant experience. Rossman, on
Speaker 1: the other hand, did say that she had engaged in
Speaker 1: some civil practice prior to becoming a federal public defender.
Speaker 1: So that's that's the issue, And I think most senators
Speaker 1: are satisfied that Lee is extremely intelligent and done incredible
Speaker 1: work as a federal public defender state public defender for
Speaker 1: a couple of decades. Republican Senator John Kennedy was very
Speaker 1: critical of Lee because she said she doesn't have a
Speaker 1: personal judicial philosophy, and he said, you're going to be
Speaker 1: on the United States Court of Appeals if you're confirmed,
Speaker 1: and you don't have a judicial philosophy about how the
Speaker 1: United States Constitution should be interpreted. I mean, do you
Speaker 1: need to have a judicial philosophy? Well, a lot of
Speaker 1: people think you don't necessarily have to have one. And
Speaker 1: he really wasn't very clear about what he meant uh
Speaker 1: in asking a question, and so the nominee I think
Speaker 1: wasn't sufficiently responsive to him what he wanted. But I
Speaker 1: think he was looking for a commitment. Are you an originalist?
Speaker 1: And that's in a way an unfair question um in
Speaker 1: the sense that you can't answer it in a way
Speaker 1: that necessarily satisfies the question to some extent, because it
Speaker 1: it's subtle, and originalism means different things to different people.
Speaker 1: And so I think she was saying basically that she
Speaker 1: understands about conciitutional interpretation, but she doesn't have a philosophy
Speaker 1: of it. She's not doesn't come to it as an
Speaker 1: originalist or the other kind of epithet that conservatives often
Speaker 1: used is the living Constitution. Kennedy didn't say that, but
Speaker 1: I think it was implicit in his question, and again,
Speaker 1: as durban point has pointed out, UM the Republican nominees
Speaker 1: from Trump, Austen refused to answer the question. Questions of
Speaker 1: that sort as well coming from Democrats about UM their philosophies.
Speaker 1: So I think what we're seeing a lot of times
Speaker 1: is just the reverse of what we saw with Trump
Speaker 1: is Democrats are also being cautious and using UM the
Speaker 1: same kind of defensive tactics to protect their nominee, which
Speaker 1: shouldn't be surprised. The Senators who oversee the federal judiciary
Speaker 1: are requesting ten years worth of travel records for Supreme
Speaker 1: Court justices. Why the travel records in it? What are
Speaker 1: they trying to do? Well? There was a letter that
Speaker 1: came from Sheldon White, has his chairs the subcommittee of
Speaker 1: the Judiciary Committee on Federal Courts oversight the acts in
Speaker 1: Federal Rights and a center eternity as a ranking member
Speaker 1: on that committee, the highest ranking Republicans, and they sent
Speaker 1: a letter they want to have more transparency at the
Speaker 1: court in terms of possible conflicts of interest, I think,
Speaker 1: and perhaps some kind of standards or ethical code, which
Speaker 1: of course does bind the lower federal court judges, but
Speaker 1: there isn't this sort of same requirement at the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court level. And so it's really, I think, an effort
Speaker 1: to have more transparency around possible conflicts and astex questions
Speaker 1: that might be at issue for the justices. There are
Speaker 1: questions about that. It's ah and it's difficult. I think
Speaker 1: that people like Justice Kagan and others have said that
Speaker 1: Chief Justice Roberts is seriously considering whether it introduced a
Speaker 1: conduct code for the Supreme Court justices, and that may
Speaker 1: be a good idea, but there are concerns about separation
Speaker 1: of powers. You know, how much should Congress require the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court who comply with certain strictures that Senators might
Speaker 1: think are important. They have to tread lightly, and it's
Speaker 1: a delicate issue. I think that eventually something will be
Speaker 1: put into place, because, of course, Keef Justice Roberts deeply
Speaker 1: cares about the reputation of the Supreme Court and its
Speaker 1: credibility with the American people. As an institutionalist, I think
Speaker 1: why might be moved in that direction. So I think
Speaker 1: that's what this initiative is about. More transparency at the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, perhaps more by way of ethics requirements. But
Speaker 1: I don't know whether Congress is going to pass legislation
Speaker 1: to that effect because of the separation of powers questions.
Speaker 1: Thanks Carl. That's Professor Carl Tobis of the University of
Speaker 1: Richmond Law School. And that's it for the sedition of
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can always at the
Speaker 1: latest legal news on our Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can
Speaker 1: find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at www dot
Speaker 1: bloomberg dot com, slash podcast Slash Law. I'm June Grosso
Speaker 1: and you're listening to Bloomberg