Simson is Macon Chair in Law and former dean at Mercer Law School, professor emeritus at Cornell Law School, and a member of the board of directors of Lawyers Defending American Democracy.
You don’t have to be a big fan of Chief Justice John Roberts to concede that he wouldn’t dream of jet-setting around the country at a conservative billionaire’s expense or hanging outside his home a favorite flag of 2020 election deniers or Christian nationalists. But then why, you must be wondering, was he so unwilling to even meet with the Senate Judiciary Committee when invited in April 2023 to discuss Justice Clarence Thomas’ seemingly conscience-free jet-setting and when invited last month to discuss Justice Samuel Alito’s perhaps even more ethically challenged flag-hanging?
One thing’s for sure: You won’t find the answer in either of the letters the chief justice wrote declining the committee’s invitations. Of course, he wasn’t so impolite as to give no reasons, but the reasons he gave were all stated in such a cryptic or conclusory way that they seemed designed mainly to send the message, “I’m not coming, and I don’t even have to convince you I’m right not to come.”
In both letters he broadly alluded to “separation of powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence.” Separation of powers and judicial independence undoubtedly are principles fundamental to our Constitution, but neither was genuinely threatened by the chief justice meeting with the committee. Both principles have never been understood as absolutes. If they don’t leave room for Congress to question a chief justice when justices act in ways that cast doubt on the Supreme Court’s ability to render impartial justice, our entire system of government is in big trouble.
In one letter, Roberts called attention to “the practice we have followed for 235 years pursuant to which individual Justices decide recusal issues.” Very simply, he seemed to be saying, the Supreme Court since its inception has left it to each justice to decide whether he or she needs to recuse; therefore, it’s illogical to ask a chief justice to discuss another justice’s recusal decisions.
But the longevity and wisdom of a practice are two very different things. Even if we assume that giving individual justices complete autonomy over their own recusal decisions made sense 235 or even 35 years ago, that hardly establishes that it makes sense today, particularly in the teeth of the powerful evidence to the contrary supplied by Thomas’s and Alito’s decisions.
Surely that distinction wasn’t lost on Roberts. I strongly suspect, though, that he was willing to bite the bullet and live with Thomas’s and Alito’s ethically impoverished decisions because he believes that in general anyone not on the Supreme Court, including the many senators on the Judiciary Committee who are lawyers, can’t understand as well as a justice what’s at stake in justices’ recusal decisions.
Roberts undoubtedly recognized that Thomas’ and Alito’s recusal decisions can leave a lot to be desired. He must have been thinking, though, that in the long run the American legal system is best served by the Supreme Court keeping recusal decisions entirely in-house and rejecting any efforts, however well-meaning, of the other branches to review them.
That understanding of the chief justice’s thinking fits neatly with the message sent by the toothless Code of Conduct that the Supreme Court, after much prodding, finally released last fall. It’s also of a piece with the various majority opinions that the chief justice has authored or joined that reject agencies’ interpretations of the federal statutes they are charged with administering. Time and again, those opinions implicitly suggest that the justices are so intellectually gifted that they need not give any particular deference to agencies’ special subject-matter expertise.
Of course, I can’t say for certain that my rendition of the chief justice’s thinking captures what he was actually thinking. I have little doubt, though, that it captures well the message that his refusal actually sent, and it was a message of extraordinary hubris.
There’s simply no basis for his apparent assumption that justices’ recusal decisions are somehow beyond the ken of anyone not sitting on the court. Yes, Supreme Court recusals are unique in some ways. Most importantly, if a justice recuses, no other judge can be designated to sit in their place. To imply, however, as Roberts’ refusal to meet with the Judiciary Committee seemed to do, that senators are somehow incapable of factoring that difference into their thinking when assessing Thomas’ and Alito’s recusal decisions is insulting and wrong.
Public confidence in the Supreme Court is a precious commodity much in need of restoration. Rather than squandering it further by demonstrations of hubris, Roberts should exercise his leadership in ways that model for the other justices and communicate to the public a healthy sense of humility.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a“ Steel Across America” event ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks on the Ellipse near the White House on Sept. 8, 2026 in Washington, D.C. President Trump welcomed 9/ 11 first responders to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’ s“ Steel Across America” event featuring a 16,900- pound, 21- foot steel beam recovered.
For Trump, even 9/11 is an opportunity
There was a reason organizers of the 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan told President Trump he could not speak at this year’s memorial service.
A good one, it turns out.
Because in a speech he gave on Tuesday in Washington, he did exactly what they were presumably worried about — he made it about himself.
According to The New York Times, Trump had wanted a speaking role at the service, but the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, which oversees the site, said no, as they’ve maintained for the past decade-plus that the venue and event should be nonpartisan.
Trump has long used awful tragedies to either puff himself up, trash political opponents, or sell lies to the American people.
He blamed a deadly plane crash at Washington National Airport last year on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. He blamed Puerto Ricans for the devastation they endured after Hurricane Maria in 2017. He reportedly considered withholding disaster relief after the California wildfires based on the way affected regions voted. In an interview on Fox News meant to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, he used the occasion to slam former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…with graves of the dead behind him.
And now, as we approach the 25th anniversary of what many New Yorkers consider the darkest day in modern history, Trump has done it again.
He told a rambling, nonsensical story — one he’s told before — about going to Ground Zero just after terrorists flew two commercial jets into the twin towers. In the story, which no one has been able to verify, despite multiple attempts, he says firefighters had to carry him out of One Liberty Plaza, also known as the U.S. Steel Building, because they thought it was about to collapse.
As CNN fact checker Daniel Dale notes, there’s no evidence Trump went into this building, especially at a time when NYPD and NYFD had locked down the area. There’s no evidence that building was collapsing — in fact, it was deemed structurally sound and reopened within two months of the attacks. There’s no evidence he was carried out of it by firefighters.
But the lie isn’t even the worst part. Pretend it was all true — why would the leader of our country, and a New Yorker, decide to make that tragic day about himself?
Because that’s who Donald Trump is. He’s a malignant narcissist.
He’s also, incidentally, a terrible and ineffectual president, who’s made ill-fated decisions that he has to keep defending, and there’s nothing he won’t do to make himself look and feel better.
Within the first two minutes of his speech, he was cravenly using 9/11 to justify and promote his dumb war in Iran — two events separated by 25 years and 6,000 miles.
“And I will tell you, we’re right now fighting because we have a certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon, they were very close to getting it, and now they have no chance at getting it. They will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And they’ve been punished greatly. As you know, we’ve really taken it to them.”
As a New Yorker who lived through 9/11, still one of the worst days of my life, I’m utterly sickened by Trump’s crass, political, and self-promotional framing of that awful day.
And I’m relieved he won’t be given a platform to do it again on Friday’s anniversary in lower Manhattan.
Because for Trump, everything is his for the taking, and absolutely nothing is sacred.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.