CBS News
Biden considering proposals to reform Supreme Court
Washington — President Biden is considering a series of proposals to reform the Supreme Court, including measures to establish term limits for justices and an enforceable ethics code, CBS News has learned.
Any plans would require approval from Congress. The Washington Post was first to report Mr. Biden’s expected support for changes to the Supreme Court.
The president revealed in a call with the Congressional Progressive Caucus on Saturday that he’s been working with experts on proposals to reform the nation’s highest court to be announced soon, a source familiar with the call confirmed to CBS News. Mr. Biden did not tell the group what his plans are, but his willingness to engage on the issue marks a change for the president, who led the Judiciary Committee while serving in the Senate.
“It’s not hyperbole to suggest Trump is literally an existential threat, an existential threat to the very Constitution of democracy we, we say we care about,” Mr. Biden told the progressive lawmakers. “And I mean, if this guy wins, he’s not, and now, especially with that Supreme Court giving him the kind of breadth of — I don’t need to get into the Supreme Court right now — anyway, but I need your help. I need your advice, and I want to make sure we have a closer working relationship, because we’re in this together.”
The president came under pressure from liberal groups during the 2020 election to endorse reforms to the Supreme Court, including adding more seats to its current nine. Mr. Biden declined to back so-called court-packing and instead created a commission to study proposals to change the high court, which approved and submitted its final report to him in December 2021.
The commission did not recommend structural changes, but endorsed adoption of a code of ethics for Supreme Court justices. On the issue of term limits, the bipartisan panel examined 12- and 18-year terms, but warned that any law imposing such limits would likely be challenged in federal court.
Mr. Biden has not publicly addressed the commission’s findings, even as Democrats in Congress called for a legislative response to ethics issues at the Supreme Court. The court adopted its own code of conduct in November amid the pressure to enact ethics rules, but it does not contain an enforcement mechanism.
The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has come under scrutiny in recent weeks as it handed down a slew of high-profile decisions to close out its term. Those rulings include reversing a 40-year-old decision to curtail federal regulatory power, invalidating a Trump-era ban on bump stock devices for semiautomatic rifles, and finding that former presidents are entitled to immunity from federal prosecution for official acts taken while in office.
Two years ago, the high court dismantled the constitutional right to abortion, and last year, it rejected affirmative action for higher education.
The landmark decision on presidential immunity has significant ramifications for the case brought against former President Donald Trump by special counsel Jack Smith and further delays the start of a criminal trial in Washington, D.C. The former president has pleaded not guilty to four federal charges.
The rulings came amid a year-long investigation by Senate Democrats into the ethics practices at the Supreme Court, launched after the news outlet ProPublica revealed Justice Clarence Thomas had accepted luxury travel from GOP megadonor Harlan Crow and did not disclose the trips on his annual financial disclosure forms.
Thomas said he and Crow have been friends for more than two decades, and the justice did not believe he was required to report the travel under guidelines governing personal hospitality. He pledged to comply with new rules rolled out by the Judicial Conference last year and listed additional travel provided by Crow on his latest disclosure forms.
Justice Samuel Alito has also been criticized by Democrats on Capitol Hill for flags flown outside his Virginia residence and New Jersey vacation home in recent years. The first, an upside-down American flag, was flown outside Alito’s Virginia house in January 2021, and the second, an “Appeal to Heaven” flag, was displayed outside his New Jersey residence in the summer of 2023.
Both types of flags were carried by rioters who breached the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, but Alito has said he was not involved in the displays outside his homes. Instead, the justice told congressional Democrats in May that his wife flew the two flags, and neither of them knew of the meanings ascribed to them in recent years.
Still, the revelations about Alito and Thomas, coupled with the Supreme Court’s decisions on politically charged issues, have ramped up criticism of the court. Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced articles of impeachment against the two conservative justices last week, though they’re all-but-certain to die in the Republican-led House.
Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse and Ron Wyden have separately asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to name a special counsel to investigate whether Thomas violated any federal tax or ethics laws when he accepted travel and lodging from Crow.
Progressive groups are also hoping to use the Supreme Court to motivate voters to support Mr. Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, in November and are pouring millions of dollars into campaigns that aim to educate voters about the impact the next president will have on the high court.
Efforts are focused not only at helping Democrats hold onto the White House, but also retaining control of the Senate and flipping the House, currently led by Republicans. Total control by Democrats could clear the way for Congress to enact proposals reforming the court. Legislation requires 60 votes to advance in the Senate.
One of those bills, from Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia, would impose 18-year term limits on Supreme Court justices and establish nominations in the first and third years after a presidential election. Current justices would be required to take senior status, a form of semi-retirement, in order of length of service as new justices join the court. Under that proposal, Thomas, appointed in 1991, and Chief Justice John Roberts, confirmed in 2005, would be the first and second members required to retire.
Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
CBS News
Paul Whelan, freed in prisoner swap with Russia, tells other American detainees: “We’re coming for you”
Washington — Nearly seven weeks after the Russians handed over Paul Whelan on a tarmac in Ankara, Turkey, the Marine veteran stood on the steps of the U.S. Capitol with a message for other Americans who are held abroad.
“We’re coming for you,” he told reporters Tuesday night after he met with lawmakers. “It might take time, but we’re coming.”
Whelan said he spoke with lawmakers about how the government can better support detainees after they’re released.
“We spoke about how the next person’s experience could be better,” he said. “What the government could do for the next person that’s held hostage and comes home — the care and support that other people might need, especially people that are in a worse situation. There are people coming back that lived in the dirt without shoes for three years, people that were locked up in hideous conditions for 20 years. They need support.”
CBS News
The U.S. secured Whelan’s release in August in one of the largest prisoner swaps since the end of the Cold War. The complex deal came after months of sensitive negotiations between the U.S., Russia, Germany, Slovenia, Poland and Norway.
As part of the deal, Russia released 16 prisoners while the Western countries released eight Russians. Whelan was released alongside Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Russian-American radio journalist Alsu Kurmasheva and Vladimir Kara-Murza, a U.S. green card holder and Kremlin critic.
Whelan, who had been the longest-held American detainee in Russia, was arrested in December 2018 when he traveled to the country to attend a friend’s wedding. He was convicted of espionage in a secret trial and sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2020.
Whelan, his family and the U.S. government vehemently denied that he was a spy and accused Russia of using him as a political pawn. The U.S. government considered him to be wrongfully detained, a rare designation that put more government resources toward securing his release.
But a deal to secure his freedom was long elusive. He remained behind bars as Russia freed Marine veteran Trevor Reed and women’s basketball star Brittney Griner — both of whom were detained after Whelan’s arrest — in prisoner swaps with the U.S.
The U.S. said it pushed for his inclusion in both exchanges, but Russia refused. It led to Whelan advocating for his own release from a remote prison camp, calling government officials and journalists to make sure that he wasn’t forgotten.
When the plane carrying Whelan, Gershkovish and Kurmasheva landed in Maryland on Aug. 1, Whelan was the first to disembark. He was greeted by President Biden, who gave Whelan his American flag pin, and Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Whether he likes it or not, he changed the world,” Rep. Haley Stevens, a Michigan Democrat, told reporters Tuesday.
Whelan’s case and his family’s constant pressure on the U.S. government brought more attention to the cases of Americans who are wrongfully detained by foreign governments.
Haley said Whelan is a reminder to other Americans considering traveling to Russia that “you have a target on your back.”
Whelan said it’s been an adjustment acclimating to life back in the U.S., especially learning the latest technology like his iPhone 15.
“I was in a really remote part of Russia,” he said. “We really didn’t have much. The conditions were poor. The Russians said the poor conditions were part of the punishment. And coming back to see this sort of thing now is a bit of a shock, but it’s a good shock.”