Brett Kavanaugh Raises Ethics Concerns After Attending Holiday Party With Ex-Trump Officials, Hard Righters
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Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s judicial ethics came under scrutiny after it was reported that he attended a holiday party with former Donald Trump officials and numerous other prominent right-wing operatives.
Politico Playbook reported on a Christmas party held on Friday at the home of American Conservative Union leader Matt Schlapp and his wife, Trump White House Director of Strategic Communications Mercedes Schlapp. Kavanaugh was at the top of the guest list, among several other prominent names flagged by Politico.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Ginger Gaetz, Sean Spicer, Alex Acosta, Sebastian Gorka, Stephen and Katie Miller, Chad Wolf, Greta Van Susteren and John Coale, Laura Schlapp and Bryan Wells, Brendan Carr, Rep.-elect George Santos (R-NY), Erin and Nick Perrine, Erik Prince, Ziad Ojakli, Peter Davidson, Steve Holland and Ben Terris.
Bloomberg noted that Kavanaugh’s attendance lends to concerns about his involvement in partisan activities, especially when the trust in the Supreme Court has been in a continuous decline, according to recent polls. Supreme Court justices are frequently critiqued for attending functions that coincide with their political views.
Bloomberg provided the example of Justice Sonia Sotomayor speaking to the left-leaning American Constitution Society in June, and more recently, there was the speech Justice Amy Coney Barrett gave to the Federalist Society after the overturn of Roe v. Wade.
“Supreme Court justices should be extraordinarily careful in not only having no actual ethical difficulties but having no appearance of an ethical conundrum as well,” Tonja Jacobi, an Emory University law school professor, told Bloomberg.
Of course, Kavanaugh has been a frequent subject of left-wing criticism for years, so his socializing with this many right-wing figures went about as well as one might expect on Twitter.
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