FLASHBACK: Dem senator embroiled in conflict of interest row targeted SCOTUS in ethics crusade

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Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., is in the spotlight over a new ethics complaint about votes that ultimately yielded millions for a green nonprofit that pays his wife's consulting firm. 

Before that, he led an aggressive campaign alleging ethical violations of conservative Supreme Court justices. 

The Democratic senator took particular aim at conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas after several instances of undisclosed travel and trips were reported in 2023. "The Supreme Court justices are so deeply ensconced in a cocoon of special interest money that they can no longer be trusted to police themselves without proper process," Whitehouse claimed at the time. 

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Before the latest ethics complaint against him was filed, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, center, led a campaign against Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, right, over what he asserted were ethical violations. (Reuters)

This history of acting as a judicial ethics watchdog for conservative justices has left some calling the latest ethics complaint against Whitehouse from the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT) ironic. 

"The irony here absolutely takes my breath away," Thomas Jipping, senior legal fellow with the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation, previously told Fox News Digital. 

Whitehouse's office provided a letter to Fox News Digital from the Senate Select Committee on Ethics last year informing another watchdog group, Judicial Watch, that the senator's actions did not violate "federal laws, Senate rules, or other standards of conduct." 

The group had filed a similar ethics complaint to FACT. 

"This is a repeat dark money performance, and the previous attempt by a dark money group to plant these same smears was roundly dismissed by Senate Ethics," Whitehouse spokesperson Stephen DeLeo told Fox News Digital in a statement. "The billionaires and Supreme Court capture operatives behind FACT would like to try to stop Senator Whitehouse from shining a light on what they’ve done to deprive regular people of a fair shake before the Court. But false accusations from far-right special interests and billionaires will not impede the Senator’s pursuit of an accountable, ethical government that responds to Americans’ needs."

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The gifts accepted by Thomas from GOP donor Harlan Crow came under severe scrutiny by Democrats, but experts are still at odds over whether they violated the law. 

The post-Watergate-era 1978 Ethics in Government Act dictates that government officials, judges included, should report all gifts over a certain dollar amount that are "received from any source other than a relative." There are exceptions for "food, lodging, or entertainment received as personal hospitality of an individual."

Thomas did ultimately revise his disclosure to include trips from 2019 with Crowe.

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Following the report on his undisclosed trips, Thomas said he had been advised they did not need to be reported. 

"Early in my tenure at the court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the court, was not reportable," he said in a statement released by the Supreme Court at the time. "I have endeavored to follow that counsel throughout my tenure, and have always sought to comply with the disclosure guidelines."

Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas sits with his wife and conservative activist Virginia Thomas while he waits to speak at the Heritage Foundation on Oct. 21, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Whitehouse asked that the Department of Justice (DOJ) open a criminal investigation into Thomas, which the U.S. Judicial Conference formally declined to refer to the DOJ in January. 

Thomas was not the only conservative justice to face Whitehouse's ire; he also targeted Justice Samuel Alito for alleged ethical misconduct. 

Last year, reports emerged about an upside-down American flag at Alito's home following the 2020 election and an "Appeal to Heaven" flag flying outside his vacation home in New Jersey. Critics quickly jumped on the opportunity to pressure the justice to recuse himself from crucial upcoming decisions regarding then-presidential candidate Donald Trump's criminal cases. 

Alito attributed the upside-down flag to his wife and neighborhood drama. The "Appeal to Heaven" flag is popular among conservatives and is notably featured outside many congressional offices in the U.S. Capitol.

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In an interview at the time, Whitehouse said the flag ordeal "demonstrates why the Supreme Court needs an enforceable code of conduct," for which he has notably introduced a bill. However, many have pushed back on the idea that the legislature can or should regulate the court. Alito himself weighed in during an interview for the Wall Street Journal last year. 

"I know this is a controversial view, but I’m willing to say it. No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court—period," he said. 

Whitehouse again took him to task for the "improper" interview. "From the outside, it looks like the attorney recruited you to prop up his legal case against our investigation, using the interview to advance the argument he and several colleagues were making," he claimed, referring to attorney David Rivkin, who interviewed Alito alongside Wall Street Journal editorial features editor James Taranto.

An upside-down American flag was displayed outside of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito's home on Jan. 17, 2021, days after President Donald Trump's supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, The New York Times first reported. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

Most recently, the senator attacked Alito over a phone call with Trump regarding a former clerk being considered for his administration. The phone call came as cases involving Trump's administration were pending in court. 

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"This contact could potentially implicate provisions of the Supreme Court’s new code of conduct and of federal law... We humbly suggest that this incident provides yet another reason for the Judicial Conference and the Court to agree on some sort of neutral fact-finding when a justice’s conduct is questioned," Whitehouse wrote in a January letter to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and the Judicial Conference. 

"William Levi, one of my former law clerks, asked me to take a call from President-elect Trump regarding his qualifications to serve in a government position. I agreed to discuss this matter with President-elect Trump, and he called me yesterday afternoon," Alito told Fox News' Shannon Bream.