Congress Can Impeach a Supreme Court Justice Over Ethics. The Record on Clarence Thomas Is Public.

Yes, Congress can impeach a Supreme Court justice, and the case does not have to be a crime. The Constitution says federal judges serve “during good Behaviour” and can be removed through impeachment for “high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” a phrase the House has long read to cover serious ethics breaches and conduct that disgraces the office. A justice does not have to be convicted of anything for the House to act.

It has happened before. The House impeached Justice Samuel Chase in 1804, though the Senate acquitted him. In 1969, Justice Abe Fortas resigned under the threat of impeachment after Life magazine revealed he had taken a paid retainer from a financier who later went to prison. Financial ethics, not a criminal charge, ended his time on the Court.

What the Record Shows

The documented conduct on the current Court is not a rumor. For more than 20 years, ProPublica reported, Justice Clarence Thomas accepted luxury travel from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow without disclosing it, including a 2019 Indonesia trip on Crow’s superyacht and private jet that would have cost more than $500,000 to charter.

The gifts went beyond vacations. Crow paid roughly $100,000 in private-school tuition for a grandnephew Thomas was raising, and Thomas failed to disclose a 2014 real estate deal in which Crow bought the house where Thomas’s mother lived. A Senate Judiciary investigation later found at least three more private jet trips Thomas never reported. Thomas amended his filings in 2024 and acknowledged he should have disclosed two of the trips, which appears to violate the post-Watergate law requiring officials to report most gifts.

The Real Problem Is That No One Reviews It

Justice Alito’s record raised the same question. He did not recuse from a case where the Treasury Department was a named party while his son worked as a lawyer at Treasury, even though he had recused 64 times over stock holdings. Journalists found the conflict. The Court did not disclose it.

That is the core failure. The Supreme Court adopted a code of conduct in November 2023, but it has no enforcement mechanism, no complaint process, and no independent body to review a justice’s decision not to step aside. The Brennan Center called the code designed to fail. Every justice remains the sole judge of his own conflicts.

Impeachment Is the Backstop, Not the First Move

Here is the honest arithmetic. The House can impeach a justice with a simple majority, but removal requires 67 votes in the Senate, and that math does not exist today. An impeachment vote alone would be a statement, not a result.

The change that can actually pass is a binding ethics law. The Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act would require the Court to adopt an enforceable code, create a process to investigate misconduct, tighten recusal rules, and force disclosure of gifts and travel. Senate Republicans blocked it in 2024. Impeachment stays on the table as the constitutional remedy for a justice who will not be bound by any rule, which is exactly why the rule has to come first.

What You Can Do Now

Use the letter below to tell your senators and representative to pass the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act, with mandatory recusal when a justice or a family member has a financial or employment tie to a party before the Court, and an independent body with the power to investigate.
Call your members of Congress at (202) 224-3121. Ask them a direct question: do they support a binding, enforceable ethics code for the Supreme Court, and will they vote for one? Get the answer on the record.
Ask where they stand on impeachment. A member who says ethics violations are serious but will not name any consequence is telling you the accountability stops at words. Press for the specific step they would support.