Alito rejects calls from Durbin to recuse from Supreme Court tax case: 'No valid reason'

Justice Samuel Alito on Friday rejected a request by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) to recuse from a Supreme Court tax case after the conservative justice sat down for a pair of interviews with an attorney involved in the case.

Durbin and other Democrats had said Alito should not participate in the case Moore v. United States after the Wall Street Journal opinion section released two interviews featuring the justice.

“Because this case is scheduled to be heard soon, and because of the attention my planned participation in this case has already received, I respond to these concerns now,” Alito wrote in a four-page statement that was attached to the high court's orders list.