Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Donald Trump Attacks Leave Democrats Struggling

They don’t call her “Notorious RBG” for nothing.

The unabashed Trump continued to denounce her Wednesday, saying on his Twitter account, “Justice Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court has embarrassed all by making very dumb political statements about me”.

Ginsburg, who is 83 years old, was interviewed by The New York Times earlier this week, in which she made some controversial comments about the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

“He has no consistency about him”, she said. He just says whatever pops into his head and why hasn’t the press been proper about his tax returns? “He really has an ego”.

By the time a new US president is sworn in on January 20, 2017, three of the remaining eight justices will be 78 or older – Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer – leading to the possibility that either Clinton or Trump could have several vacancies to fill over the next four years if any of the justices retire or die in office.

From traffic courts to the U.S. Supreme Court, most judges/justices flat out refuse to comment on political issues or candidates seeking office. To the New York Times, she said: “I can’t imagine what this place would be — I can’t imagine what the country would be — with Donald Trump as our president”.

Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean at the University of California, Irvine, School of Law defended Ginsburg’s comments in the Times. “For her to have done that is an absolute disgrace to the Supreme Court”. All of this raises questions about her judgment, her temperament, and her continuing capacity to serve as a judge. The Times accused Ginsburg of “flinging herself into the mosh pit” with Trump and called her behavior “baffling”.

The Times scolded the liberal justice Wednesday in an editorial and called her impartiality into question. She should resign from the Court before she does the reputation of the judiciary more harm. In the legal world there is surely a broad concern, reflected in Ginsburg’s outspokenness, that a Trump presidency might mortally wound the Constitution. But, you know, she’s getting support from people who know and like her, Noah Feldman, says “doesn’t everybody have a Jewish grandmother that says these sort of things?”

“Judges are supposed to stay out of politics and above politics”, Hellman said.

“He is a faker”, Ginsburg said Monday of Trump in an interview with CNN. They could be threatened with impeachment but that would be an extreme measure. It is extremely inappropriate for a sitting Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States to get into politics.

Conspicuously silent about all this so far: President Obama. And remember this is a court that has only eight justices right now.

Now, Trump is questioning Ginsburg’s mental acuity and calling on her to resign. This makes her extraordinary intervention at least understandable.

“This is nothing casual”, said Arthur D. Hellman, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

The outcome of the 2000 election between Bush and Al Gore, for example, was decided by the Supreme Court. What if that kind of scenario arises again this fall?

Ginsburg’s comments – which stand out even more because her seven colleagues on the bench have not weighed in on the election – are seen by many as reflecting her independent spirit.

Donald Trump has clashed with judges before, accusing them of being biased against him. Mrs. Ginsburg’s opinion of the Donald will not surprise anyone, given the fact that she is perhaps the most liberal member of the U.S.

Also, he said, recusing herself from a case involving Trump or his interests would “be an appropriate thing to consider”.

WILLIAMS: I don’t think anyone on the court thinks her mind is shot. During the 2004 Cheney case, Justice Antonin Scalia refused to recuse himself, although he’d recently gone on a duck hunting trip with Cheney.

Republicans have said the next president should be allowed to nominate a replacement for Scalia. So it’s not the substance of the remark, it’s the idea that she made it at all.