The chief justice of the Supreme Court in his year-end report called on federal judges to work hard to adhere to ethics rules after over 100 were caught violating a rule that requires judges recuse in any matter in which they have a personal financial interest. Chief Justice John Roberts cited (pdf) a Wall Street Journal investigation that uncovered violations by 131 federal judges across 685 cases between 2010 and 2018. The George W. Bush nominee portrayed the number of violations as small, noting that they represented less than three-hundredths of one percent of the 2.5 million civil cases filed in the district courts in years studied. “Let me be crystal clear: the Judiciary takes this matter seriously. We expect judges to adhere to the highest standards, and those judges violated an ethics rule. But I do want to put these lapses in context,” he said. The wording drew a response by …