Surely no one was surprised by any of the views expressed by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in an interview with The New York Times reporter Adam Liptak, though it is surprising for a Supreme Court justice to be so candid.
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Nor was it surprising that she praised President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Merrick Garland, and expressed her view that the court’s work is hindered by the Senate’s failure to consider him.
Stetson University law professor Louis Virelli III tells the Washington Post that Ginsburg’s comments could be seen as grounds for her to recuse herself in cases involving Donald Trump and his administration, if he is elected. ‘For the country, it could be four years.
She then shared a joke between her and her now-deceased husband, Marty: “Now it’s time for us to move to New Zealand”.
“He has no consistency about him”, Ginsburg told CNN.
“I can’t imagine what this place would be, I can’t imagine what the country would be, with Donald Trump as our president”, she told the New York Times in a Sunday article, echoing an earlier comment to the Associated Press. How has he gotten away with not turning over his tax returns?
Trump appeared to be jolted by the remark, which was uncharacteristically frank opinion for a Supreme Court justice. Quite important, she did not comment on any case now pending before the court or say anything that could not already be inferred from her past votes. She has successfully battled cancer twice, most recently in 2009 when she had surgery for pancreatic cancer. “I don’t necessarily think she would be required to do that, and I certainly don’t believe that she would in every instance, but it could invite challenges to her impartiality based on her public comments”, Virelli said. Jim Bunning, a Kentucky Republican, who had said she would likely die within nine months from the pancreatic cancer.
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Acknowledging her own age and that Justices Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer will turn 80 and 78, respectively, Ginsburg said of the possible next president: “She is bound to have a few appointments (to the Supreme Court) in her term”.
