Thread: Gorsuch speech at Trump hotel sparks questions, protests

Gorsuch speech at Trump hotel sparks questions, protests

Richard Wolf, USA TODAY
Published 12:12 p.m. ET Sept. 28, 2017
Updated 12:16 p.m. ET Sept. 28, 2017

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch will deliver a speech Thursday afternoon at Trump International Hotel in the nation's capital, sparking protests by opponents and objections from ethics experts who say the newest justice is too close to his benefactors.

The address to The Fund for American Studies, a nonprofit educational organization that teaches "the principles of limited government, free-market economics and honorable leadership," comes a week after the newest justice spoke at a center named after Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell at the University of Louisville.

Gorsuch owes his lifetime appointment to President Trump, who nominated him in January, and McConnell, who blocked President Barack Obama from filling the seat throughout 2016 following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

His decision to speak at the Trump and McConnell locales by invitation, rather than declining or seeking other venues, "has offended the conflict-of-interest sensibilities of legal ethicists at several levels — and rightly so," says Gabe Roth, executive director of the watchdog group Fix the Court, in a USA TODAY column Thursday.

While Trump has ceded management of the Trump Organization to his elder sons during his presidency, he has not relinquished his stake in its properties. Watchdog groups have charged that is a violation of the Constitution's emoluments clause, which blocks payments to federal officials from foreign governments.

In addition, Trump's immigration travel ban targeting mostly majority-Muslim countries remains pending before the Supreme Court. While recent changes to the ban make it likely the case will be declared moot, Gorsuch ruled in Trump's favor over the summer on several interim orders concerning which travelers and refugees were covered.

Trump's Justice Department also has taken positions on most of the other major cases being heard by the court this fall, including those involving gay rights, voting rights, workers' rights and privacy rights.

Gorsuch plans to be the keynote speaker in November at the conservative Federalist Society's annual gala, which has hosted conservative justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito in the past. The group was instrumental in composing the list of 21 potential Supreme Court nominees from which Trump chose Gorsuch.

https://www.usatoday.com/news/

Oh shut up!! This is the United States where people and organizations are FREE PEOPLE to decide where they hold an event they're willing to pay for. When "ethics" interferes with freedom and liberty to conduct business and conferences and peaceful assembly, then "ethics" is the problem, not the business, conferences or location of peaceful assembly.