New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez launched a new attack on the Supreme Court on Wednesday, but legal experts say the move will do little other than further undermine the court's legitimacy.

Ocasio-Cortez Introduced Congress introduced articles of impeachment against Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito on Wednesday, suggesting that the justices are corrupt or otherwise unfit to continue serving on the nation's highest court. But legal scholars who spoke with the DCNF say the “Squad”'s impeachment efforts are not based on precedent or good faith, and are unlikely to accomplish much beyond expanding a partisan campaign to undermine the Supreme Court's Republican-appointed majority under the guise of achieving ethics reform.

“These resolutions against Justices Thomas and Alito are highly speculative, completely unsupported by any evidence, and concern matters of the Supreme Court's internal governance. Because the Supreme Court was created by the Constitution, not Congress, it has its own constitutional powers and is part of the judicial branch, designed, among other things, to check Congress' abuses of power,” Johns Hopkins said. Malcolm, vice president of the Heritage Foundation's Institute for Constitutional Government, told DCNF: “These resolutions are an attack on judicial independence and an attempt to bend the Supreme Court to the will of a highly partisan minority in Congress.” (Related article: Supreme Court deals devastating blow to enduring bureaucratic power over American lives)

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Specifically, Ocasio-Cortez Claimed Thomas argued he should be impeached for failing to disclose gifts from real estate mogul Harlan Crow and other wealthy friends, and for failing to recuse himself from matters allegedly involving his wife's financial and legal interests.

ProPublica, a nonprofit news organization, series In 2023, ProPublica published numerous articles about Thomas' relationship with Crow, laying the groundwork for ongoing efforts by Democrats to push for ethics reform at the Supreme Court and suggest that Thomas was impartial. The outlet won a Pulitzer Prize for its reporting, but in June 2023, the DCNF exposed that major ProPublica donors were also funding a range of activist groups that were attacking Thomas' ethics.

Ocasio-Cortez, meanwhile, sees Alito as worthy of impeachment for failing to disclose certain income and rebates, as well as for failing to recuse himself from issues of alleged bias. Like Thomas, Democrats have launched a sustained pressure campaign against Alito following a series of ProPublica reports and, more recently, a series of articles about the controversial flag that Alito's wife reportedly flies in their home.

Justices Thomas and Alito are known as two of the Supreme Court's most conservative and principled justices. Democrats often argue that the Republican-appointed majority, which included Justices Alito and Thomas, consistently rules in favor of conservatives, but a DCNF review of decisions from the recently concluded term found this assertion to be false.

“If these resolutions led to the impeachment and removal of either Justice Thomas or Justice Alito, it would inflict immeasurable, and perhaps permanent, damage to the separation of powers, the most important bulwark for protecting and preserving our civil liberties,” Malcolm, who is also a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Criminal Division, told DCNF. (Related article: “They must have been reading a different case”: Conservative justice criticizes liberal colleague for failed dissent)

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Malcolm said the House of Representatives has impeached one Supreme Court justice and 14 lower court judges in American history, while the Senate has convicted and removed eight lower court judges, and most of the judges who have been impeached and acquitted were accused of clearly committing crimes, he said.

“AOC “She's right about one thing, and only one thing: the only appropriate check Congress has on the judiciary is impeachment (aside from unconstitutionally imposing term limits or giving senators veto power over members assigned to high-profile cases), but her attempt to turn the minutiae of disclosure documents into high crimes and misdemeanors is completely unserious and will accomplish nothing,” Judicial Crisis Network executive director Carrie Severino told DCNF. “She's engaged in a campaign to discredit the Supreme Court because it's part of her efforts to create a movement for Congress to seize power, including adding more to the Supreme Court, but weakening our core institution for clickbait is extremely cynical and shortsighted.”

Ocasio-Cortez is not the only Democrat to lead the attack on the Supreme Court. Rhode Island Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse Mentioned The White House has argued for the Supreme Court to be treated as a “weapon” to be used for conservative interests, while Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois has echoed the White House, seeking to invite Chief Justice John Roberts to speak in May about the court's ethical standards.

“Only a few federal judges have been impeached in American history, and all of them were for very serious crimes like bribery or Confederate membership,” Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law in Houston, told DCNF. “These articles of impeachment have no substantive basis. If federal judges could be impeached simply for disagreeing with a politician's ruling, judicial independence would be quickly eroded.”

The offices of Ocasio-Cortez, Whitehouse and Durbin did not respond to requests for comment.

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