Thread by @JCNSeverino

Senator Graham is already making the connection between today’s hearing and intimidation of the justices.

He reminds that Sen. Schumer promised the justices would “reap the whirlwind,” and here we are.

/1

Flashback:

“I want to tell you, Gorsuch. I want to tell you, Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.” - Senator Chuck Schumer

@SenWhitehouse doing his usual routine.

“The danger isn’t that rogue justices are operating without ethics. It’s that Democrats aren’t winning every fight, and they find that reality intolerable.” - @SenJohnKennedy

“Until [Democrats] get the outcome they want in every case, I fear they’re going to continue to slander [the Supreme Court] in an effort to take control of it.” - @SenJohnKennedy

Judge Mukasey makes good points that putting a Court employee or other committee or individual in charge of the justices’ recusals is a recipe for both constitutional violations and political interference.

In the latter point he echoes arguments made by Justice Breyer about how… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Kedric Payne's testimony says there is no internal committee to address ethics questions so there isn’t consistency or knowledge of who they’ve consulted.

But they do have one. They consult a committee of 9 Supreme Court justices. And as the highest court in the land they can’t… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Tom Dupree predicts a first-round in every litigation about which justices even get to sit on the case. I think that’s right.

For all the people who are annoyed about the potential for forum-shopping that single-judge districts allow, or about the second-level fights that arise… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Amanda Frost says that without an independent ethics board, the Supreme Court is accountable to no one.

She’s wrong.

The Constitution creates a check on the Supreme Court: impeachment.

But it doesn’t allow a check beyond actual impeachable conduct.

Senator Graham pointed how Justice Ginsburg's 1998 donation of her signed VMI decision that went on to be auctioned off at fundraiser for the National Organization for Women's Legal Defense Fund received no outage.

And he asked witnesses how a hypothetical scenario of Justice… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

“Are you aware that [Demand Justice] spent over $1 million in ads pressuring Justice Breyer to resign?” - Senator @LindseyGrahamSC

“The goal of the Left’s efforts is to cast doubts on certain judges and justices all because the Left is opposed to recent Court rulings. That’s what this hearing is all about — undermining the American people’s trust in the judicial branch of government.”- Senator @ChuckGrassley

Justice Clarence Thomas predicted this "high-tech lynching" over 30 years ago:

"And from my standpoint as a black American, as far as I'm concerned, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Hey @kedric_payne, here's your retweet since you can't recall...

@kedric_payne Here's the other one too @kedric_payne.

Senator @ChrisCoons says, “if you undermine that legitimacy…”

But who’s doing the undermining? Why do people think there’s corruption? Because people with a vested interest in taking down the justices they disagree with have been making up false, one-sided, and misleading… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Yes, “judges should be angry about the crisis in legitimacy.”

They should be angry because Democrats are falsely impugning them, with real consequences for the public confidence in the Court.

“This is a political campaign designed to smear Justice Thomas. And the reason is simple — the Left despises Clarence Thomas. They do not despite him because he’s a conservative. The Left despises Clarence Thomas because he’s a conservative, African-American.” - Senator @tedcruz