WASHINGTON — Liberal US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has introduced articles of impeachment against conservative Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, her office said Wednesday.
The effort stands no chance of advancing in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. To remove an official through this process, the House must vote to impeach and the Senate then must vote to convict.
Democrats for years have criticized the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, over rulings that advanced causes popular on the right. These have included rolling back abortion rights, expanding gun rights, rejecting race-conscious collegiate admissions and ruling that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution for official acts in office in a decision favoring Donald Trump.
Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement that Thomas and Alito’s “pattern of refusal to recuse from consequential matters before the court in which they hold widely documented financial and personal entanglements constitutes a grave threat to American rule of law.”
Some congressional Democrats have accused Thomas and Alito, two of the court’s most conservative members, of ethical lapses.
Activists criticized Thomas following reports that he failed to disclose accepting travel and lodging from a wealthy benefactor and that his wife was involved in efforts to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss. Thomas has said he regarded the travel he accepted as personal hospitality not subject to disclosure requirements.
Alito similarly faced criticism after the revelation that flags associated with Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 results were flown outside the justice’s homes in Virginia and New Jersey. Alito has said it was his wife, not he, who flew the flags.