Leaders of the House Judiciary Committee have asked U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to open an investigation into the Eleventh Circuit chief judge's recent hiring of a federal law clerk with "a history of nakedly racist and hateful conduct."

"We write with grave concern regarding the news that Judge William Pryor, chief judge of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, and Judge Corey Maze of the Northern District of Alabama have hired an individual with a history of nakedly racist and hateful conduct as a future law clerk in their chambers," House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler, D-New York, and Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet Chair Hank Johnson, D-Georgia, said Wednesday in a letter addressed to Roberts and Eleventh Circuit Judge Charles Wilson.