There is a certain gravity that comes with the Supreme Court. It is not written down anywhere, but Americans feel it instinctively. The justices wear black robes, not costumes. They speak in opinions, not punchlines.
Which is why Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s letter to Chief Justice John Roberts landed this week with a thud.
Blackburn urged Roberts to open an investigation into Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson after Jackson attended the Grammy Awards on Sunday — an event that mixed celebrity, politics, and sharp anti-ICE rhetoric.
Jackson’s presence was not accidental. She had been nominated for a Grammy for narrating the audiobook version of her memoir, “Lovely One.” That alone is not scandalous. Justices attend public events. They always have.
But this was not a neutral evening.
Some critics accused Jackson of clapping during jokes aimed at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, delivered amid a show that leaned heavily into progressive politics.
“While it is by no means unheard of or unusual for a Supreme Court justice to attend a public function,” Blackburn wrote, “very rarely—if ever—have justices of our nation’s highest Court been present at an event at which attendees have amplified such far-left rhetoric.”
Blackburn sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and she framed her concern narrowly: whether Jackson’s conduct complied with the Court’s Code of Conduct, which requires justices to “act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.”
That code is new. The Supreme Court adopted its first-ever version in 2023, under pressure following revelations about undisclosed gifts and travel involving conservative justices. All nine signed it. Enforcement, however, remains hazy.
Blackburn argued that haze matters, especially now. The Court is weighing high-profile cases involving President Trump, including birthright citizenship, with immigration cases likely ahead.
At the Grammys, attendees wore “ICE Out” lapel pins. Some winners offered lines like “No one is illegal on stolen land” and “F— ICE.”
Instead of taking the time to learn what a woman is, Ketanji Brown Jackson was at the Grammy’s applauding anti-ICE rhetoric.
How can Americans trust her to be impartial on the highest court in the land?pic.twitter.com/F7wn5jxoVb
— Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) February 3, 2026
Blackburn noted the contrast. Democrats once urged Roberts to push Justice Samuel Alito to recuse himself from election and Jan. 6 cases over a flag flown by his wife. Alito refused. He later drew global attention for mocking European leaders who criticized the Court’s abortion ruling.
She also cited the years-long pressure campaign against Justice Clarence Thomas over vacations with GOP donor Harlan Crow.
“Congressional Democrats and the legacy media have spent years smearing Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices as corrupt, partisan, and having engaged in conduct that violates the Court’s Code of Conduct,” Blackburn wrote.
“These public smear campaigns orchestrated by congressional Democrats and amplified by the mainstream media were baseless and a pathetic attempt to influence the decision-making process of the Court.”
This, at bottom, is not about music awards or memoirs. It is about whether the Supreme Court remains visibly above the noise—whether the robe still carries distance, restraint, and silence when silence matters most.
