Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin delivered a subpoena to conservative activist Leonard Leo on Thursday as part of the committee’s investigation into Leo’s interactions with Supreme Court justices.
Democrats on the committee voted to authorize the subpoena in November as part of their probe into Supreme Court ethics over strong objections from Republicans, who called the move politically motivated. Leo indicated that he does not intend to comply with the subpoena, according to a letter his attorney sent to Durbin on Thursday.
“Today, I received an unlawful and politically motivated subpoena from U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin,” Leo, executive vice president of The Federalist Society, said in a statement provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “I am not capitulating to his lawless support of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and the left’s dark money effort to silence and cancel political opposition.”
Durbin said Thursday that Leo’s “outright defiance” of requests from the committee since July 2023 left them “with no other choice but to move forward with compulsory process.”
“Mr. Leo has played a central role in the ethics crisis plaguing the Supreme Court and, unlike the other recipients of information requests in this matter, he has done nothing but stonewall the Committee,” Durbin said in a statement to the DCNF. “This subpoena is a direct result of Mr. Leo’s own actions and choices.”
Leo objected to the committee’s earlier requests for information relating to his interactions with Supreme Court justices. His lawyer told Durbin in a letter last July that his “selectively” targeted and “politically charged” inquiries exceeded “the limits placed by the Constitution on the Committee’s investigative authority.”
The Supreme Court adopted a code of ethics on Nov. 13 that mirrors rules followed by lower court judges.
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