If the conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court set a goal of undermining or even destroying the credibility of what not long ago was the most hallowed part of the federal government, they should feel good about the work they’ve done.

A few days ago, ProPublica reported that Justice Clarence Thomas had accepted even more financial favors from billionaire “friends”—including some who had business before the court—than previously had been revealed. Thomas had disclosed none of the gifts, which amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars, even though he was required to do so.

This latest ProPublica story followed earlier ones that established a pattern for Thomas and fellow Justice Samuel Alito. That pattern involved having the two justices accept tremendous largesse from rich “friends,” many of whom also had cases that came before the court.

Alito and Thomas neither disclosed the likely conflicts of interest nor recused themselves from consideration of the cases.

After ProPublica broke the story, Thomas and Alito had the option of coming clean, acknowledging the ethical lapse and vowing to do better.

Neither man chose that route.

Thomas, as usual, stayed silent.

Alito went in the other direction.

“I know this is a controversial view, but I’m willing to say it. No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period,” Alito defiantly said of Congress in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

What made Alito’s statement remarkable was how completely wrong it was.

The Constitution grants Congress tremendous power over the Supreme Court. America’s founding charter gives Congress the authority to determine how many justices will sit on the bench and how much they will be paid, among other things.

In fact, a strong argument can be made that, rather than having three coequal branches, the federal government has one preeminent one.

The legislative branch.

The Supreme Court and the president of the United States do not have the authority to impeach, try and remove members of Congress from their offices. But Congress has the power to impeach, try and remove Supreme Court justices from the bench and presidents from the Oval Office.

In other words, within the federal government, only one branch has hiring and firing authority over the other two.

If Alito does not grasp this basic fact, then his understanding of the Constitution he is supposed to implement and defend is beyond shaky.

And if he chose to misrepresent what the Constitution he took an oath to honor says for reasons of personal convenience … well, then, the ethical problems associated with this particular justice go beyond his tendency to grasp whatever goodies billionaires place before him.

What neither Alito nor Thomas seems able to understand is that their habits of traveling lavishly while wealthy benefactors pick up the tab, concealing the fact that they do it and then advancing spurious arguments to defend their conduct doesn’t just reflect on their integrity as individuals.

It also affects how Americans view the highest court in the land.

If a justice such as Alito is willing to twist the Constitution to try to rationalize his, at best, disingenuous and, at worst, duplicitous behavior, then in service of what other pet causes or personal beliefs would he be willing to do so?

This is an important question.

Part of the reason the Supreme Court has been so venerated is that most Americans have had faith that, to the degree that is humanly possible to do so, the justices seek to interpret and apply the Constitution impartially.

Seeing a justice transparently run our founding document through the grinder of a private agenda erodes—and maybe even erases—that presumption of good faith.

For a court that has overturned longstanding precedents regarding reproductive rights and affirmative action, maintaining such a presumption is more than important.

It is essential.

But it is that presumption of good faith that Thomas’s silence about and Alito’s defiance regarding their ethical misconduct undercuts.

Thus, at a time when Americans need to be able to believe wholeheartedly in the Supreme Court’s integrity, two conservative justices blithely make that belief difficult, and maybe even impossible, to maintain.

If Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas had planned to demolish the high court’s standing, they couldn’t have chosen a better approach.

And they don’t even seem to understand or care about the damage they have done.