Justices’ quiet response to ethics crisis reveals a lesson in PR management

As the Supreme Court faces mounting ethics questions and a crisis of public confidence, Chief Justice John Roberts and the other justices are trying to play it cool.

The “nothing to see here” approach is no surprise for the justices, who rarely give interviews and prefer to speak to the public solely through their formal opinions. But it won’t win them any fans and it’s unlikely to quell the growing pressure for Supreme Court ethics reform, according to top crisis-management experts with ties to Washington.

The court’s immediate PR crisis is the string of stories, published by ProPublica, detailing Justice Clarence Thomas’ close relationship with Republican megadonor Harlan Crow. On Thursday, the publication reported that Crow spent tens of thousands of dollars on private school tuition for Thomas’ great-nephew, whom Thomas helped raise. The justice had not disclosed the tuition payments.

There’s a “massive disconnect between the general societal expectation and movement toward transparency, accountability, openness and the opaque and unaccountable way that SCOTUS is approaching this,” said Matt Dennis, a partner at the communications firm CRD Associates.

This approach can make the court appear out of touch, said Dennis, a former communications director for the House Appropriations Committee Democrats who also served as communications director in the personal office of former Rep. Nita Lowey.

Recent polls have shown record-low levels of public trust in the Supreme Court.

Not addressing the ethical concerns head-on can give “a sense that the Supreme Court is somehow above pedestrian concepts like trust and accountability and avoiding the appearance of impropriety,” Dennis said.

Thomas is also under scrutiny after an April ProPublica story revealed that Crow had financed luxury vacations for the justice for over two decades, which Thomas also did not disclose.

He defended the luxury vacations and said he was “advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing Tuesday about ethics at the high court, but Chief Justice John Roberts rebuffed the committee’s invitation to testify. Instead, he attached a statement, signed by all nine justices, that largely rehashed prior assurances about the court’s ethics practices.

Neither Roberts nor the court as a whole have given any indication that they are considering adopting a binding code of conduct or making any significant changes to how they handle issues related to recusals or financial disclosures.

Katherine McLane, founder and CEO of Mach 1 Group, a strategic communications and public affairs organization, said Roberts’ response sounds “more like a punt” and an “effort to buy time, to plan, consolidate, create consensus among the justices on a course of action.”

McLane worked for George W. Bush’s education secretary and in former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration.

“The eyes of this nation are turning to the Supreme Court in a manner which is pretty overwhelmingly negative,” McLane said. “And the inner workings of that body are pretty opaque to the general public. And they’re now gauging what kind of action and what kind of accountability there is in that body when situations like this arise.”

McLane said a more subdued, quiet reaction to ethical challenges risks losing Americans’ confidence.

“You don’t want people to think that the court is corrupt, but I mean, to just completely operate in this really opaque fashion, it lends credence to that,” Dennis said.

Michael Ricci, the former communications director for Maryland Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, believes sticking to business as usual is something any court would do in this type of situation. He thinks the high court will “try to wait out this particular period” and “anticipates that the issue might subside, especially with an election year coming up.”

They may not even believe that this moment warrants an urgent response, said Ricci, who is now a partner at the strategic communications agency Seven Letter.

“Unless you saw justices being willing to criticize each other for some of the stories that you’ve seen, I just don’t think that the court would feel like it’s in a full blown crisis situation,” Ricci said.