Republicans are appealing Colorado’s ballot removal of Donald Trump to the Supreme Court, and the questions now are whether the Justices will take up the case, and, on CNN, whether the conservative judges should recuse themselves from it.

On CNN’s State of the Union on New Year’s Eve, anchor Dana Bash asked ranking House Oversight Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin about the case, and whether Justices who were appointed by Trump — that’s Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch — or any others such as Justice Clarence Thomas, should recuse themselves from the case on ethical grounds.

The assumption being that conservative judges can’t make a ruling objectively if they were appointed by Trump, a prominent assumption not just about the Supreme Court but in media coverage of most cases with Trump-appointed judges at any level. And in the case of Thomas, his wife Ginni Thomas’s connection to January 6 — the precipitating event upon which Trump’s ballot ban in both Colorado and Maine is based.

“Three of the sitting justices were appointed by Donald Trump. And in addition to that, Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife, Ginni, texted with Mark Meadows about the 2020 election in the lead-up to January 6, as you well know,” said Bash. “Should any of the Justices recuse themselves if they take this up?”

Raskin did not weigh in on whether the three Trump appointees are compromised as Bash suggested, but did say that Clarence Thomas “absolutely” should recuse himself. “The question is,” he added rhetorically, “what do we do if he doesn’t?”

BASH: Three of the sitting justices were appointed by Donald Trump. And in addition to that, Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife, Ginni, texted with Mark Meadows about the 2020 election in the lead-up to January 6, as you well know. Should any of the Justices recuse themselves if they take this up?

RASKIN: Well, finally the Supreme Court has developed what they’re describing as a Code of Ethics. It’s not binding in the sense that they’re not going to anyone else They could have gone to, for example, Circuit Court justices, You could have had state Supreme Court justices on a panel. But so they’re they’re deciding for themselves again, whether they’re in violation of their code of ethics. But I think anybody looking at this in any kind of dispassionate, reasonable way would say, if your wife was involved in the “Big Lie” and claiming that Donald Trump had actually won the presidential election and been agitating for that and participating in the events leading up to January 6, that you shouldn’t be participating in —

BASH: So he should recuse himself?

RASKIN: He sh- Oh, he absolutely should recuse himself. The question is, what do we do if he doesn’t recuse himself?

Watch the clip above via CNN.

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