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Ocasio-Cortez’s articles of impeachment against the rogue justices probably won’t remove them. But history suggests it might help tame the court in other ways.

By Thom Hartmann, The New Republic

Article 3 of the Constitution, which defines the roles and powers of the court system, says: “The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour.”

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is taking the Framers at their word; this week, she introduced articles of impeachment against both Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

aoc

While the Republicans on this court have engaged in a decades-long steady torrent of corruption—from Chief Justice John Roberts’s wife making over $10 million hustling lawyers into law firms that practice before the court to Clarence Thomas’s million-dollar vacations and mother’s rent-free life, Samuel Alito’s paid speeches and luxury vacations with billionaires, Neil Gorsuch’s and Amy Coney Barrett’s fealty to the fossil fuel industry that his mother and her father served, and finally to Brett Kavanaugh’s alleged gambling debts—Congress has so far overlooked its obligation to, as Article 3, Section 2 says, “regulate” the Supreme Court.

AOC’s impeachment resolution calls out the two most egregious examples, Thomas and Alito, for failing to disclose gifts from billionaires with issues before the Court. She also nails them both for refusing to recuse themselves from cases where they have obvious conflicts, like Thomas’s wife participating in January 6 and Alito’s flag-waving support of the effort to end our democracy.

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