Solomon: Trump’s lies may show if there is any ethics left in the Supreme Court – Daily Independent

Virginia Casse Solomon

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By Virginia Casse Solomon | President, Common Cause

Small men tend to lash out when their egos are hurt. Just a few months ago, former President Donald Trump’s election seemed likely. His confidence was high. But the nomination of Vice President Kamala Harris changed all that. With Harris leading in many polls, Trump fears he will lose…again.

So he reverted to an old and tired tactic of using his crude pulpit to bash immigrants, demonizing them loudly and dangerously and the darker their skin, the more violent the rhetoric. We’ve all seen this movie before; this is the sequel no one is looking for.

If he loses, Trump will not commit to accepting the election results. The campaign is expected to again file a series of legal challenges that are likely to end up before the three-judge Trump-appointed Supreme Court. The court has a tarnished public reputation stemming from a series of ethics scandals and highly controversial rulings.

The Republican National Committee is already laying the groundwork for potential challenges to Trump’s 2024 loss, filing more than 100 election-related lawsuits that could come into play if their candidate loses again. Trump is trying to provide cover for an embattled Supreme Court to overturn an election with baseless remarks on the stage of an illegal voting rally by a parade of horrifying – millions of misfits, pet-eating, mentally unstable, terrorist, gang-affiliated immigrant drug cartels.

Ridiculous, yes, but it plays into his hopes of canceling an election if he loses. That’s why Trump is attacking immigrants to galvanize his base and lay the groundwork to bring his Big Lie back to the Supreme Court.

These attacks have been simmering for years, but they burst onto the national stage when Trump, during a presidential debate, made unsubstantiated and false claims about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. This lie and thousands of others are fueling hatred and endangering immigrants across the country.

Trump’s election lies were used in battleground states to pass a long list of Jim Crow-like laws that make it harder for targeted groups — especially black and brown communities — to vote.

“Election police” in Florida and Texas have found virtually no voter fraud, but have succeeded in discouraging entire communities from voting or becoming civically engaged by investigating people, raiding homes, and nonprofits registering voters. For years, groups like the Heritage Foundation have looked for evidence of voter fraud by immigrants and others and found little to no trace. Yet, these election deniers continue to pursue anti-voter legislation to “fix” a problem that doesn’t exist.

This is the third cycle in a row that Trump has scapegoated immigrants, and this time he thinks the best way to try to overturn legitimate election results is to claim that millions of them voted illegally.

Many countries don’t buy it. Recently, top officials in the battleground states of Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin vowed to protect the legitimacy of our elections by taking local governments to court if they refuse to certify the presidential election. Democratic, Republican and non-affiliated election representatives across the country are working overtime to ensure that this election is the most well-administered and transparent to date. After all, the only way to counter a lie is with the truth.

That brings us back to the Supreme Court, which has the final say on any potential challenge to the 2024 presidential election. Legal ethics experts stressed that revelations that Clarence Thomas’ wife, Ginny, repeated text messages to Trump’s chief of staff in The White House, Mark Meadows, for stealing the 2020 election, and that Justice Samuel Alito’s wife, Martha-Anne, now flies flags synonymous with the Stop Theft movement outside their homes raise serious questions about the impartiality of judges.

To avoid further damage to the court’s reputation, Justices Thomas and Alito should recuse themselves from any case seeking to overturn the presidential election because of conflicts arising from the actions of their wives.

Eventually, Congress would pass binding ethics rules like the Supreme Court Ethics, Dismissal, and Transparency Act. Meanwhile, if challenges to the 2024 election results reach the Supreme Court, the judges will have to save the reputation and legitimacy of the Supreme Court. The world is watching to see if the court will allow a minor male hit.

Editor’s note: Virginia Casse Solomon is president of the Common cause. Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcome [email protected].