A prominent conservative activist and philanthropist is pushing back against President Biden’s newly unveiled plan to make drastic changes to the Supreme Court and impose ethics rules, saying that if the president “were truly serious” about such transformations he’d start with Congress – “where the real corruption is.”
On Monday, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris threw their weight behind changes to the high court, including term limits, a constitutional amendment limiting immunity for presidents, and a new slate of ethics rules – most of which some legal experts claim would be unconstitutional.
Biden, in an op-ed published Sunday in The Washington Post, said he has “great respect for our institutions and separation of powers” but claimed that “what is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms. We now stand in a breach.”
Leonard Leo, the co-chairman of the conservative legal network the Federalist Society who was reportedly responsible for helping the Trump administration choose Supreme Court nominees, is calling Biden’s bluff.
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Leonard Leo speaks at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., on April 23, 2019. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“No conservative justice has made any decision in any big case that surprised anyone, so let’s stop pretending this is about undue influence,” Leo said in a statement.
“It’s about Democrats destroying a court they don’t agree with. If President Biden and the Democrats were truly serious about ethics reform, then they would ban all gifts and hospitality of any kind to any public official in any branch of government, starting with Congress, where the real corruption is,” he continued.
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Leonard Leo attends the 2023 Antonin Scalia Memorial Dinner that is part of the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention on Nov. 9, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“They would close all of the loopholes that allow Members to travel on private jets to fancy hotels and restaurants. With respect to judges, they would include the things where influence peddling is most present and dangerous – and that’s when the liberal Justices rub shoulders with influencers at places like law schools, bar associations, progressive think tanks and their conferences, and other groups and events funded by Left-wing billionaires, where they support real vested interests in the work of the Court,” he added.
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Leonard Leo, center, chairs a meeting of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom on Sept. 17, 2009, in Washington, D.C. (Shaun Tandon/AFP via Getty Images)
Biden argued the new Supreme Court code of conduct should require justices to “disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity, and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest.”
“Let me be clear,” Leo said. “If Democrats want to adopt an across the board ethics ban for all branches, I am in favor of that: no jets, no meals, no speaking honorariums, no gifts for anyone from anyone for any reason in any branch, starting with Congress.”
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“Until they support that, let’s all be honest about what this is: a campaign to destroy a court that they disagree with,” he concluded.
Biden is set to speak on his proposed changes to the high court Monday afternoon.
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.
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