By Tierney Sneed, CNN

(CNN) — The Supreme Court said Tuesday that it will start using software to assist in justices’ decisions to recuse themselves from cases that present a potential conflict of interest.

A brief press release issued by the court described an electronic matching process already used by some lower courts to compare a case’s parties to lists judges assemble of individuals and organizations they have ties to. A 2023 code of conduct statement from the justices said they were considering adopting such a tool themselves.

“This software will be used to run automated recusal checks by comparing information about parties and attorneys in a case with lists created by each Justice’s chambers,” the press release said. “The system was designed and created by the Court’s Office of Information Technology in cooperation with the Court’s Legal Office and Clerk’s Office.”

Spokespeople for the high court declined to answer follow up questions from CNN. The court announced it was embracing the software as it rolled out tweaks to its rules that instructed parties to include their stock ticker symbols in filings to be used by the new software.

Gabe Roth, who heads the court reform organization Fix the Court, said Tuesday’s announcement was a positive step, but noted that lower courts have been using similar software since 2007 and questioned why it took more than two years for the justices to embrace the tool they said they were considering in 2023.

The Supreme Court’s approach to ethics is notoriously opaque, and the 2023 statement came only after an unprecedented scrutiny of lavish trips taken by members of the court — and particularly, Justice Clarence Thomas — that went unreported on financial disclosure forms, despite being subsidized by others. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Neil Gorsuch have also been criticized for not recusing in cases that involved the publishing companies that financed their book deals.

The justices police their own obligations to judicial ethics, with no outside body holding them accountable to the rules that govern the rest of the judiciary.

While justices will publicly indicate that they have recused from a case, only some will also give any sort of reason for why they’re doing so.

It was notable during the confirmation process for Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who then served on the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals, when she released the list of people, organizations or companies that would present potential conflicts that the appeals court ran against its recusal software.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the only justice confirmed since, also released the list she had assembled for her former post on the DC US Circuit Court of Appeals. In their confirmation submissions, both jurists had committed to continuing to use their recusal lists to avoid conflicts.

CNN’s Joan Biskupic contributed to this report.

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CNN

By Brian Stelter, CNN

(CNN) — Stephen Colbert taped a “Late Show” interview with James Talarico, a candidate in the Democratic Senate primary in Texas. But he says CBS lawyers intervened before the interview could air on TV.

“We were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast,” Colbert told his viewers Monday night.

CBS told a different story in a statement Tuesday afternoon: The network said “The Late Show” was given “legal guidance” but was not “prohibited” from broadcasting the interview.

The controversy stems from the Trump administration’s intensifying pressure against broadcast TV networks.

CBS has been uniquely vulnerable to the pressure due to the corporate ambitions of its parent company Paramount, which is currently trying to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, including CNN.

The Federal Communications Commission, which regulates local stations owned by broadcasters like CBS, recently issued new guidance about an old regulation known as the “equal time” rule.

The rules do not apply to cable or streaming — which is why Colbert’s show posted the Talarico interview on YouTube as an “online-only exclusive” — but do apply to local TV and radio stations.

The rule require stations to give equal airtime to all legally qualified candidates for public office — if one is featured, his or her rivals have to be given time, too.

There are big exemptions for news coverage, and for the past two decades that exemption has also been thought to apply to late night and daytime talk shows.

But FCC chair Brendan Carr is rejecting that thinking. Last month, he said stations should no longer assume that shows like Colbert’s are exempted from the rule.

“If you’re fake news, you’re not going to qualify for the bona fide news exemption,” Carr said at a press conference.

The FCC threats against talk shows

As Carr’s use of the phrase “fake news” indicates, he is a staunch ally of President Trump. He has been harshly critical of liberal-leaning talk shows like ABC’s “The View” and has been open about reducing the power of national networks.

But the FCC’s enforcement powers are limited. The lone Democratic commissioner at the FCC, Anna Gomez, said last month that Carr’s claims were misleading: “The FCC has not adopted any new regulation, interpretation, or Commission-level policy altering the long-standing news exemption or equal time framework.”

A source at the FCC reiterated that point, saying, “Once again here, the threat is the point.”

“The point is to force shows and networks to second-guess their decisions in light of this ‘new’ guidance,” the source told CNN on condition of anonymity.

However, CBS indicated in a Tuesday statement that it is taking the new guidance seriously.

It said that Colbert’s