US high court chief declines to testify on ethics questions

WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court´s Chief Justice John Roberts is refusing to testify in Congress about business dealings by two conservative justices and lavish gifts one received that have raised ethics issues.

Roberts cited “separation of powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence” in declining the committee´s invitation in a letter dated Tuesday to the Senate Judiciary Committee. He included a copy of court ethics guidelines and a statement signed by the nine justices in which they “reaffirm and restate foundational ethics principles and practices.”

But Roberts made no direct reference to the controversy engulfing the court´s most senior justice, Clarence Thomas, that Thomas and his wife Ginni received lavish gifts and took vacations worth millions of dollars with property billionaire Harlan Crow.

Thomas did not report those gifts, which included a flight on Crow´s private jet to Indonesia for an island-hopping cruise on Crow´s 162-foot (49 meter) yacht, according to the independent ProPublica news outlet.