Al Franken blasts Supreme Court: It’s ‘illegitimate’

“The court is a very divisive entity now, institution right now. And the Supreme Court, to me, is illegitimate,” Franken said on “The Al Franken Podcast” in conversation with The Washington Post’s Dan Balz. 

​​Former Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) is calling the Supreme Court “illegitimate” and Chief Justice John Roberts a “villain,” citing a number of controversies surrounding the nation’s highest court.

Franked resigned from the Senate in 2017 amid sexual harassment allegations.

He referenced the controversial confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump nominee, and the court’s decision last summer to overturn Roe v. Wade.

“The way they didn’t take up [Obama nominee Merrick] Garland and on saying, ‘It’s an election year,’ and then they, of course, put in Coney Barrett like eight days before the election. Then, of course, Dobbs and abortion.”

Balz said the court has “lost credibility” and has become “seen increasingly as one more partisan institution,” though he noted Roberts has tried to counter that perception.

“I think the Chief Justice is actually much more culpable for this division than people think,” Franken said, referencing some of Roberts’s decisions. “I think Roberts is much more the villain in this than people give him credit for.”

Polling has indicated a decline in Americans’ trust that the Supreme Court, with its nine lifetime-appointment Justices, is nonpartisan.

Franken’s comments also come amid new scrutiny over the Supreme Court’s ethics standards after reporting from ProPublica found Justice Clarence Thomas failed to disclose a series of luxury trips he’d taken, paid for by Republican donor Harlan Crow, and revelations that the same Texas billionaire had paid for the home Thomas’s mother was living in.