Legal advocacy group urges reprimand for Gorsuch\'s speech at Trump International Hotel | News

A plea to reject Gorsuch for the U.S. Supreme Court — Neil Gorsuch — PHOTO: WikiCommons

Free Speech For People has sent an open letter to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts detailing ethical conflicts associated with Justice Neil Gorsuch’s speech at a hotel owned by President Donald Trump.

Following Gorsuch’s speech at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., Free Speech For People urged Roberts to issue a letter of reprimand to Gorsuch and to publish a court policy on the ethics issues involved with a justice appearing at a venue owned by the president of the United States.

The letter cites Canon 1 of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges, which states a judge should “maintain and enforce high standards of conduct and should personally observe those standards, so that the integrity and independence of the judiciary may be preserved.”

The letter also cites the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Williams-Yulee v. Florida Bar, where the court recognized a compelling interest in “preserving public confidence in the integrity of the judiciary.”

The letter goes on to detail ethical conflicts:

• The appearance that Gorsuch is endorsing Trump’s re-election campaign.

• The likelihood that a case involving the hotel could reach the Supreme Court, as the hotel is currently the subject of three federal lawsuits involving the Constitution’s Foreign and Domestic Emoluments clauses.

• The appearance that Gorsuch approves of Trump’s for-profit presidency, of which the hotel has become one of the foremost symbols.

While Roberts has written that the Code of Conduct for United States Judges “plays the same role” for the Supreme Court as it does for other federal judges, the Code does not directly apply to Supreme Court Justices.

The advocacy group's letter urges the court to adopt its own formal code of conduct that incorporates the requirements of the Code of Conduct for U.S. judges.