Liberal Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, who sided with the opposition in the Hobby Lobby case, failed to appropriately recuse herself during the ObamaCare constitutionality case in 2012. (politico.com)
While writing my previous blog on the 5-4 Supreme Court Hobby Lobby decision I was reminded of an earlier decision by Justice Elena Kagan, one of those liberals who opposed it. She failed to recuse herself in March of 2012, when the Court considered the constitutionality of ObamaCare.
Despite Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts’ focus on recusals during his year-end annual report, when he acknowledged that while the Code of Conduct for United States judges applies to all federal judges except Supreme Court justices, she failed to do so. He had assured Americans that the Supremes, too, look to this Code for “guidance,” and follow it. Not Kagan.
The Code requires disqualification if a federal employee participated as an advisor on a matter before the Court. Kagan was the former Solicitor General and a series of e-mails to and from her on the subject of “health care litigation meeting” were surfaced.
Kagan said, however, that she would only recuse herself from a case in which she “officially formally approved something,” or “served as counsel of record,” or played any “substantial role.” And she ignored the proposition that her impartiality might reasonably be questioned.
In an e-mail obtained through a Freedom of Information request she called ObamaCare’s passage as “simply amazing,” and that she assigned a deputy in her office to help prepare legal defenses to a challenge. In another e-mail, when asked for her opinion on a meeting to discuss legal defenses, she replied, “what is your phone number?,” purposely avoiding a written record of her response.
Kagan only worked in the White House for a short time, but she learned how to flout the rule of law from her boss, President Obama.
