Fox News host Jeanine Pirro said the Supreme Court’s inability to identify who leaked the draft opinion last year was a “self-imposed injury” that has led to a loss in public confidence in the institution.
The lack of accountability, though, doesn’t stop at the high court. It spans across the various departments and branches of government, which has led to a confidence problem from the public, the former judge said.
In an interview with The Washington Times’ “Court Watch” podcast, Ms. Pirro discussed faults she has identified in the justice system — particularly in the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice, which she focused on in her new book, “Crimes Against America: The Left’s Takedown of Our Republic.”
“A lack of accountability has created this sense in America of a corrupt Department of Justice and FBI, and the sad part about that is that people in America want to believe everything is on the up and up, and that Lady Justice is blind, but Lady Justice is not blind,” Ms. Pirro said.
Ms. Pirro, who worked for decades as a prosecutor and later a judge in Westchester County, New York, alleged that corruption has gone unpunished in the Biden family, particularly with regard to President Biden’s son Hunter’s foreign business dealing.
She said whistleblowers are coming forward, but there’s been no prosecution even after years of investigations into Hunter Biden.
Ms. Pirro said the public’s lack of confidence in other institutions also can be traced to accountability concerns.
Recent polling has shown the public’s disapproval of the job the Supreme Court is doing has been on a steady decline.
The Supreme Court received its highest disapproval rating in a Quinnipiac University survey this week in the nearly two decades of polling — dating back to 2004, the year Quinnipiac began asking voters their thoughts on the high court. Fifty-seven percent of respondents disapproved of the Supreme Court, while only 35% approved, according to the poll released Wednesday.
Senate Democrats on Capitol Hill have been pushing legislation to impose a code of ethics on the high court following news reports about Justice Clarence Thomas not disclosing gifts from GOP megadonor Harlan Crow. Mr. Crow and Justice Thomas have defended their friendship, and said business before the high court was never discussed.
But Senate Republicans have said ethics shouldn’t be the focus, instead, insisting that security concerns should come first due to protests against the conservative justices following the unprecedented leak of a ruling revealing the court was poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark case that gave women a right to abortion nationally.
The court did overturn Roe, but whoever leaked the internal document has not been publicly identified.
“The Supreme Court has essentially allowed itself to become a political football by not stepping in and making sure whoever leaked it — whether it is a clerk, a secretary, an assistant or a Supreme Court justice — that not identifying the person has been a self-imposed injury on the court,” Ms. Pirro said.
In her eighth book, published May 23 by Winning Team Publishing, she explains how cashless bail, progressive prosecutors and lack of immigration enforcement has damaged the country.
The Durham report, released earlier this month, she said is an example of the “nonsense” in the government.
In the report that encompassed a roughly four-year investigation, special counsel John Durham concluded that FBI officials and leadership under former FBI Director James B. Comey did not follow normal order during their probe into former President Donald Trump when pursuing allegations of conspiracy with Russian leaders to win the 2016 election.
“The most stunning part for me is the fact that [2016 Democratic presidential nominee] Hillary Clinton, according to the Durham report, was the one who came up with the idea of a Russian collusion hoax,” Ms. Pirro said.
She said the only way to restore public confidence is to restructure the departments from the top.
“No one is fired. No one is suspended,” she said.
Click here for more Court Watch with Alex Swoyer.
• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.
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