The Constitution (Article III, Section 1) says only, “Judges, both of the Supreme Court and the inferior courts, should hold their offices during good behaviour”. “I think it’s a disgrace to the court and I think she should apologize to the court”. “Her comment today doesn’t change that”, he said.
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In an interview with CNN Legal Analyst and Supreme Court Biographer Joan Biskupic on Monday, Ginsburg blasted Trump as a “faker”. He says whatever comes into his mind at the moment. He really has an ego…
Barry Friedman, a professor of law at New York University who describes himself as a friend of Ginsburg’s, said her comments were a stark example of a breach in the neutrality justices must adhere to.
Even with this seemingly apology, of course, there will be those who will seek to force Ginsburg to recuse herself in future cases should Trump win the election, but most if not all of those calls will likely be without merit. Even a brilliant jurist can find him- or herself in a minefield of his or her own making. Were a Trump v. Clinton case to arise this fall, Ginsburg’s vote would be deservedly suspect. That’s not just political; it’s the kind of analysis we expect from an infrequent cable news guest with the title “political consultant”.
No matter how idyllic our notions of a Supreme Court may be, judges simply can not rule in a vacuum void of politics, Baker said. You know, she can only hope that the controversy will now subside. “You need to be extremely circumspect”.
When the justice realized she had erred, she could have said nothing more. Some Democrats chastised her (albeit gently). She also (apparently) joked about moving to New Zealand in the event of a Trump Administration. On social media, he criticized her comment as, in his words, “dumb”.
RBG isn’t the first to let her doubts about Trump bleed out into newsfeeds, but this is different from the typical political figure because as a SCOTUS justice, she is, by definition, supposed to avoid being political. In subsequent tweets, Trump called Justice Ginsburg “incompetent” and wondered whether she would apologize. The concept of the Judicial branch criticizing the future head of the Executive branch flies in the face of that. She announced that she had made a mistake and was correcting the opinion and now other justices do that.
In a July 7 interview with The Associated Press, Ginsburg was outspoken on the possibility of Trump’s election: “I don’t want to think about that possibility, but if it should be, then everything is up for grabs”.
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U.S. Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes left the high court in 1916 to become the Republicans’ presidential nominee.
