Chief Justice John Roberts has declined an invitation to meet with top Senate Democrats over judicial ethics, citing “separation of powers concerns.” His letter to Sens. Dick Durbin and Sheldon Whitehouse, the chair and senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, comes a day after Justice Samuel Alito declined to recuse himself from two cases related to Jan. 6, despite calls to do so, after news reports about politically controversial flags that were flown outside Alito’s properties, NPR reports. After the reports about the flag, Durbin and Whitehouse invited Roberts to meet with them. “I must respectfully decline your request for a meeting,” Roberts wrote. He said that “apart from ceremonial events, only on rare occasions in our Nation’s history has a sitting Chief Justice met with legislators, even in a public setting (such as a Committee hearing) with members of both major political parties present.”
Roberts added: “Separation of powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence counsel against such appearances. Moreover, the format proposed – a meeting with leaders of only one party who have expressed an interest in matters currently pending before the court – simply underscores that participating in such a meeting would be inadvisable.”