Supreme Court ethics code backfires immediately

The U.S. Supreme Court announced on Monday that it was introducing a new code of conduct for justices amid ongoing calls to implement an ethics code, prompting criticism on social media.

"The undersigned Justices are promulgating this Code of Conduct to set out succinctly and gather in one place the ethics rules and principles that guide the conduct of the Members of the Court. For the most part these rules and principles are not new," the court said in a statement.

"The absence of a Code, however, has led in recent years to the misunderstanding that the Justices of this Court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules. To dispel this misunderstanding, we are issuing this Code, which largely represents a codification of principles that we have long regarded as governing our conduct."

In recent months, some Americans have urged the court to adopt a code of ethics following reports that Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito received gifts and trips from billionaires. ProPublica published a report in August detailing that Thomas received several trips and traveled aboard the private jet owned by billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow.