Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg must recuse herself in the U.S. Supreme Court, argues Freedom Watch’s “Judicial Selection Task Force.” If she does not do so, she should be involuntarily disqualified by a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court. The task force I started as general counsel of the public interest law firm Freedom Watch is leading this effort nationwide.
Most immediately, Justice Ginsburg must recuse herself voluntarily in the case challenging President Donald Trump’s moratorium on travel from six failed states under his Executive Order 13769, “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,” 82 Fed. Reg. 8,977. This landmark case is necessary to preserve the power of the commander in chief to protect the nation against liberal penumbras and emanations of political correctness liberal judges imagine that they see somewhere in the U.S. Constitution.
It is difficult for parties in a lawsuit to directly challenge a judge who may decide their case. Freedom Watch can do in the public interest and for the American people what direct parties may be unwilling to risk doing. I call on public interest leaders and activists and concerned citizens to join in our demand for integrity and public confidence in our nation’s courts.
In June or July 2016, Justice Ginsburg intentionally spoke to journalists, clearly knowing and intending that her pronouncements would be widely disseminated through the news media. She deliberately met with journalists for the purpose of broadcasting her comments nationwide during and concerning a presidential campaign.
A key issue in the upcoming travel moratorium case is whether the president’s statements on the campaign trail as a candidate are to be considered in determining whether Executive Order 13769 has discriminatory intent. On its face the order offers no hint of religious discrimination and does not mention any religion. So the entire case turns on whether or not Trump’s statements made in campaign appearances should be reviewed and should even trump the plain wording of the executive order.
However, Justice Ginsburg has already made up her mind that then-candidate Trump’s campaign statements were meaningless:
In an interview on CNN, Justice Ginsburg stated the following about Trump:
“He is a faker,” she said of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, going point by point, as if presenting a legal brief. “He has no consistency about him. He says whatever comes into his head at the moment. He really has an ego. … How has he gotten away with not turning over his tax returns? The press seems to be very gentle with him on that.”
CNN’s Joan Biskupic reported: “Having met with Ginsburg on a regular basis for more than a decade and sometimes been struck by her frankness, I found her response classic. The 83-year-old justice expressed no regret on Monday for the comments or surprise that she would be criticized. Any disbelief she expressed stemmed from the fact that Trump has gotten so far in the election cycle. ‘At first I thought it was funny,’ she said of Trump’s early candidacy. ‘To think that there’s a possibility that he could be president …’ Her voice trailed off gloomily.”
“I think he has gotten so much free publicity,” Ginsburg added, drawing a contrast between what she believes is tougher media treatment of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and returning to an overriding complaint: “Every other presidential candidate has turned over tax returns.”
In an interview with the Associated Press, “Ginsburg conceded that she was presuming that Democrat Hillary Clinton would be the next president, so that either Garland or a Clinton nominee would join the court. But what if Republican Donald Trump won instead? ‘I don’t want to think about that possibility, but if it should be, then everything is up for grabs.'”
In an interview with the New York Times Ginsburg 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. For the country, it could be four years. For the court, it could be — I don’t even want to contemplate that.”
Referring to the possibility that Donald Trump might become president, Justice Ginsburg quipped: “Now it’s time for us to move to New Zealand.”
Ginsburg revealed to the Times her goal of avoiding “a lasting setback to Mr. Obama and the immigrants he had tried to protect” concerning United States v. Texas:
“Think what would have happened had Justice Scalia remained with us,” she said. Instead of a single sentence announcing the tie, she suggested, a five-justice majority would have issued a precedent-setting decision dealing a lasting setback to Mr. Obama and the immigrants he had tried to protect.
Justice Ginsburg’s partisan statements during the 2016 election shocked even liberal court-watchers, earning faint criticism from even the usual supporters of left-wing jurists. To some court watchers, Ginsburg’s 2016 political campaigning against Donald Trump sounded like a judge or justice who has stopped caring, that is, a justice who expected to resign after Hillary Clinton won the November presidential election.
She sounded like she was throwing caution to the wind, abandoning her judicial responsibility and ethical requirements, and nakedly campaigning against Donald Trump in an ongoing partisan political campaign. Instead, the justice decided to continue deciding the nation’s fate after Trump won the presidency.
Justice Ginsburg, at age 84, should resign. But having openly campaigned against Donald Trump, at the very least she cannot sit in judgment over cases that directly implicate a) President Trump’s agenda that he campaigned on and b) his credibility, having already announced that she does not believe what he says. Concerned citizens need to rally to join our effort, with donations of both funds and effort welcome. We need to tell the U.S. Supreme Court’s members that the appearance of bias is no longer acceptable in the public mood of today.
Learn more at www.freedomwatchusa.org.
Media wishing to interview Larry Klayman, please contact [email protected].
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