Supreme Court’s Alito Rejects Democratic Calls for Recusal (2)

US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito rejected Democratic demands that he recuse from a pending tax case after he gave two interviews to one of the participating lawyers for use in a Wall Street Journal article.

In a unusual four-page statement released by the court, the conservative said that “there was nothing out of the ordinary about the interviews in question.”

The statement was the latest sign of brewing discord over the court’s ethics controversies, limited transparency and far-reaching rulings. Alito, who wrote last year’s decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion, has been at flashpoint, in part because of ...