Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas

The nature of the text messages was enough to require recusal, legal experts said. But the Supreme Court has traditionally left such decisions to the ...

“Indeed, if the Supreme Court reviewed those decisions, it would create an undesirable situation in which the court could affect the outcome of a case by selecting who among its members may participate.” “A justice accordingly cannot withdraw from a case as a matter of convenience or simply to avoid controversy,” he added. “This is a consequence of the Constitution’s command that there be only ‘one Supreme Court.’ ” “If an appeals court or district court judge withdraws from a case, there is another federal judge who can serve in that recused judge’s place,” he wrote. “I have complete confidence in the capability of my colleagues to determine when recusal is warranted,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. In his 2011 annual report on the state of the federal judiciary, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote that “the limits of Congress’s power to require recusal have never been tested.” “By writing to Meadows, who was chief of staff and active in the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement, she joined the team resisting the results of the election,” Professor Gillers said. In an interview this month with The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative publication, Ms. Thomas said that she and her husband kept their professional lives separate. Republicans, even those who have distanced themselves from Mr. Trump and the more extreme wing of their party, showed no interest in pressuring him to recuse himself. The court rejected the request, with Justices Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. issuing a brief statement suggesting the majority had acted too soon in shutting the case down. Democrats immediately seized on the disclosure to draw attention to the conflicts they said were presented by Ms. Thomas’s political activities and to press Justice Thomas to recuse himself from cases concerning the election and its aftermath. The nature of the text messages was enough to require recusal, legal experts said.