Donald Trump is right about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: It's inappropriate for her to be sounding off on the presidential race, the
New York Times declares in a harsh rebuke of the liberal jurist.
"There's no legal requirement that Supreme Court justices refrain from commenting on a presidential campaign," the editorial board writes. "But Justice Ginsburg’s comments show why their tradition has been to keep silent."
The Times notes Ginsburg's harsh words about Trump echo Trump's own lambasting of Hispanic federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who's overseeing a case against Trump University –
criticism that was widely condemned.
"All of which makes it only more baffling that Justice Ginsburg would choose to descend toward his level and call her own commitment to impartiality into question," the editorial board writes.
"Washington is more than partisan enough without the spectacle of a Supreme Court justice flinging herself into the mosh pit."
The editorial board sternly warns Ginsburg that she "needs to drop the political punditry and the name-calling."
"Three times in the past week, Justice Ginsburg has publicly discussed her view of the presidential race, in the sharpest terms," the editorial notes, including in a
Sunday Times interview in which she opines that "I can’t imagine what the country would be — with Donald Trump as our president,” joking that if her husband were alive, he might have said, "It’s time for us to move to New Zealand."
In an interview with the
Associated Press last Friday, Ginsburg also said of a Trump presidential victory: "I don’t want to think about that possibility, but if it should be, then everything is up for grabs."
And on Monday, she
hurled more dirt at Trump, calling him "a faker" who "has no consistency about him," adding: "He says whatever comes into his head at the moment. He really has an ego."
Trump answered back Tuesday, telling the
Times it was "highly inappropriate that a United States Supreme Court judge gets involved in a political campaign."
On Wednesday, the GOP presumptive nominee hurled a Twitter bomb suggesting Ginsburg's mind was "shot" and that she should quit.
"In this election cycle in particular, the potential of a new president to affect the balance of the court has taken on great importance, with the vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia," the Times editorial notes. "As Justice Ginsburg pointed out, other justices are nearing an age when retirement would not be surprising. That makes it vital that the court remain outside the presidential process."
"And just imagine if this were 2000 and the resolution of the election depended on a Supreme Court decision. Could anyone now argue with a straight face that Justice Ginsburg’s only guide would be the law?"
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