Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) says President Donald Trump’s clear lack of character shouldn’t distract from those complicit in his corruption.
Speaking Sunday during MoveOn’s Won’t Back Down tour stop in Phoenix, the rising Democratic star called on her party to fight not just Trump but also his enablers in Congress and on the Supreme Court.
“Donald Trump is a piece of shit. OK, we know that,” Crockett said, earning thunderous cheers. “But in a functioning democracy, he still would not be able to get away with this.”
She pointed squarely at the conservative-majority Supreme Court, accusing the justices of enabling Trump’s abuses of power and urging swift action to crack down on their cozy ties to right-wing donors.
“We know that they’re taking money. We have the paper trail,” she said. “And they refuse to put guardrails on themselves, so it’s time for us to do it for them.”
Concerns about the Supreme Court’s integrity surged after a set of 2023 ProPublica investigations revealed billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow’s decades-long relationship with Justice Clarence Thomas.
Crow’s “friendly” generosity included luxury trips, private school tuition for Thomas’ grand-nephew, and real estate purchases involving the justice’s family. None of it was disclosed.
In response to the uproar, the court adopted a new ethics code in late 2023, one critics have dismissed for its absence of enforcement mechanisms.
Since then, the court’s 6–3 conservative supermajority has issued a string of rulings that appear to benefit Trump directly, including broad interpretations of presidential immunity, backing his brutal mass deportation policies, giving him sweeping power to fire federal officials, and upholding a ban on transgender service members
Earlier this year, Democrats tried to revive a Biden-era bill known as the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal and Transparency Act, or SCERT, which would impose an enforceable code of ethics on the highest court in the nation.
When it was first introduced in 2023, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called it “politically motivated legal garbage.”
And with Republicans back in control of both chambers, the bill’s chances appear even more slim this go-around.