Chief Justice Roberts Makes Confession About ‘Secretive Trip’
Chief Justice John Roberts made a rare public appearance Wednesday evening in Buffalo, New York, speaking at an awards dinner where he offered light-hearted reflections on public life—and now finds himself at the center of a serious constitutional lawsuit.
Speaking during a Q&A session moderated by U.S. District Judge Lawrence J. Vilardo, Roberts was asked about maintaining privacy while holding one of the most powerful judicial roles in the country. The event was broadcast on C-SPAN3.
“Let’s talk about your role in terms of you as a public figure,” Vilardo began. “Obviously, you’re very recognizable. People know who you are. You have to be on all the time, like now. And how do you separate that from your private life?”
Roberts responded with humor, recalling a moment abroad when he was misidentified as another political figure.
“My wife and I were on vacation in Portugal last year. And another American came up to us. And he looked at me and says, ‘I know you. I know who you are. You’re John Boehner,’” Roberts said, prompting laughter from the audience.
“I had to spend the whole evening pretending to be John Boehner. So, when you say readily recognizable, really not, to be honest with you,” Roberts quipped.
The Chief Justice acknowledged that public awareness of the Court is increasing. “It’s getting worse, though, in general, just because the work of the court is getting to a higher degree of publicity. So, it is a problem,” he said. Still, he added that most public encounters have been civil. “I will say, 99% of the interactions I’ve had with people, they come up and say hello, which is fine. And so, that’s good. But we’re not as recognizable as you might think.”
Roberts Now Faces Legal Challenge from America First Legal
While Roberts joked about his visibility, legal pressure is mounting. The America First Legal Foundation (AFL), led by President Donald Trump’s former senior adviser Stephen Miller, has filed a federal lawsuit against Roberts in his official capacity as leader of the U.S. Judicial Conference, along with Robert J. Conrad, director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.
The suit accuses both judicial bodies of exceeding their constitutional authority by engaging in what AFL describes as executive and regulatory functions—areas the group argues are outside the core judicial role of deciding cases and supporting court operations.
Filed earlier this week, the complaint highlights actions taken in 2023 by the Judicial Conference and the Administrative Office to accommodate congressional inquiries into perceived “ethics violations” by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito—actions AFL contends are politically motivated and legally unfounded.
According to Fox News, the suit also challenges the judiciary’s efforts to create or enforce a code of conduct for Supreme Court justices, an initiative long pushed by Democrat lawmakers and left-wing activist groups.
“Under our constitutional tradition, accommodations with Congress are the province of the executive branch,” AFL stated. “The Judicial Conference and the Administrative Office are therefore executive agencies,” the complaint argues, and should be subject to oversight from executive officers accountable to the president.
At the core of the lawsuit is the assertion that the U.S. Judicial Conference—typically a policy-setting body for the federal courts—has morphed into an unsupervised regulatory agency, taking actions that should instead fall under the purview of the White House.
America First Legal also contends that these actions open the Judicial Conference and Administrative Office to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, as would any executive branch agency acting in a policymaking or regulatory role.
The suit, led by AFL attorney Will Scolinos, presents a bold challenge to what many Trump allies view as judicial overreach, especially in an era where Democrat-led attacks on conservative justices have become increasingly frequent and aggressive.
With President Trump once again leading the executive branch, his allies are making it clear: no branch of government—including the courts—can operate outside the framework of constitutional accountability.