us-supreme-court president precedent conflict-of-interest recusal
Would a Trump-nominated Supreme Court justice be expected to recuse themselves from a Trump case?
<p>As of Oct 21, 2022, the January 6 Committee has issued a subpoena to former president Trump, setting up the potential for a case against Trump to end up in front of the Supreme Court. I spent awhile trying to find precedent on what would happen were a Trump-nominated justice to be faced with a case against their nominator, but unsurprisingly the strangeness of the situation seems to surpass my ability to spend endless amounts of time searching the internet, and my lawyer friends don't seem to know either.</p>
<p>Would it be considered a conflict of interest for a Supreme Court justice nominated by Trump to hear a case against Trump, and would said justice be expected to recuse themselves?</p>

<h2>No, That Would not be treated as a Conflict of Interest</h2>
<p>There is precedent. The four Justices appointed by President Nixon did not recuse themselves on cases involving Nixon, including subpoenas to turn over White House tapes recording conversations involving Nixon and his close advisors. Indeed it was a decision against him in such a case that apparently was the final thing that caused Nixon to resign.</p>
<p>It is worth noting that there is no binding law or rule of practice specifying when a Justice must recuse, which is different than the rule for all other Federal judges. Congress could pass a law imposing a mandatory code of ethics on the Justices, but has not done so.</p>

<p>There is no hard law (statutory, constitutional or SCOTUS holding) regarding &quot;conflict of interest&quot; for Supreme Court justices. Justices have typically recused themselves in case of financial interest, for example owning shares of a plaintiff / defendant company. Also, if a justice was involved in lower-level proceedings (e.g. circuit court appeal), they will step aside. If a justice is a defendant in a case, they (tend to) recuse themselves – the one relevant case that I know is <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/053017zor_l6gn.pdf" rel="noreferrer">Jaffe v. Roberts et al.</a> where somebody sued all of the justices except Gorsuch, who was the new kid on the block, so the lower court judgment was affirmed by default. Justices have exercised the option of recusing themselves because of other connections to a party, such as a close friend being a party, a party being one's son's educational institution, a party having testified against th justice at a confirmation hearing. There is a case (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewell_Ridge_Coal_Corp._v._United_Mine_Workers_of_America" rel="noreferrer">Jewell Ridge Coal Corp. v. United Mine Workers of America</a>) where Hugo Black participated, but a former law partner of Black's argued for the winning side. This is one of the controversial cases of non-recusal.</p>
<p>The ethical guidelines are not bright except in cases of financial interest, prior involvement, or being an actual party. No SCOTUS justice has recused themselves because the administration which nominated them is also being sued, and it would not be expected that a justice nominated by a president would recuse themselves from hearing. In <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_v._Jones" rel="noreferrer">Clinton v. Jones</a>, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer who were Clinton appointees participated in the decision, and voted against Clinton. In <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Nixon" rel="noreferrer">US v. Nixon</a>, Rehnquist recused himself because of association with Watergate defendants, and not because Nixon nominated him. Lewis Powell, nominated by Nixon, did not recuse himself and voted against Nixon, idem Harry Blackmun.</p>
