President Trump took to Twitter late on Monday and demanded that liberal Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor recuse themselves on ‘Trump-related matters’ that come before the bench.
The president was reacting to a segment on Monday’s Fox News program hosted by Laura Ingraham.
Ingraham devoted a portion of her show to discussing Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s scathing dissent last week after the high court ruled in favor of the Trump administration on its ‘public charge’ policy.
The Supreme Court lifted an injunction allowing the administration to move ahead with plans to deny would-be immigrants green cards if they are thought likely to use public services like Medicaid, food stamps, and vouchers.
President Trump (seen above in New Delhi on Monday) lashed out at liberal Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Twitter
Trump slammed Sotomayor (left) and demanded that she and Ginsburg (right) recuse themselves ‘on all Trump-related matters’
Trump hit out at Sotomayor for a dissent she wrote last week after the high court ruled in the administration’s favor on the so-called ‘public charge’ policy involving would-be immigrants
‘I only ask for fairness, especially when it comes to decisions made by the United States Supreme Court!’ Trump tweeted on Monday
Sotomayor blasted her conservative colleagues, accusing them of showing favoritism toward the administration by granting its request to lift the injunction.
Trump late Monday tweeted the title of the segment: ‘Sotomayor accuses GOP appointed Justices of being biased in favor of Trump.’
He then wrote: ‘This is a terrible thing to say. Trying to “shame” some into voting her way?
‘She never criticized Justice Ginsberg when she called me a “faker”.
‘Both should recuse themselves on all Trump, or Trump related, matters!
‘While “elections have consequences”, I only ask for fairness, especially when it comes to decisions made by the United States Supreme Court!’
Trump was referring to the comment made by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in July 2016, when the current president was locking up the Republican nomination.
Ginsburg said of Trump at the time: ‘He is a faker.
‘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.’
The president was reacting to a Fox News segment from Laura Ingraham’s nightly show during which she discussed Sotomayor’s dissent from last week
Ginsburg was also quoted as saying of Trump: ‘I can’t imagine what this place would be – I can’t imagine what the country would be – with Donald Trump as our president.’
Days later, Ginsburg apologized, calling her comments ‘ill-advised.’
‘On reflection, my recent remarks in response to press inquiries were ill-advised and I regret making them,’ Ginsburg said in a statement.
‘Judges should avoid commenting on a candidate for public office. In the future I will be more circumspect.’
Sotomayor generated headlines over the weekend when she blasted the Trump administration as well as her conservative colleagues in a harsh dissent.
In a 5-to-4 ruling on Friday, the Court’s conservative majority allowed the administration’s ‘wealth test’ for would-be immigrants to go into effect while appeals wind their way through the legal system.
The ruling was similar to the one handed down by the high court last month, which was appealed by the administration after a federal judge in New York issued a nationwide injunction.
Friday’s ruling by the Supreme Court lifted a limited injunction that applied only to Illinois.
Sotomayor, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, criticized the Trump administration for asking the Supreme Court to rule on its policies by claiming they were emergencies.
The Trump administration on Friday was given the go-ahead by the Court to deny green cards to those who are thought likely to make use of public benefits like Medicaid, food stamps, and vouchers
The emergency applications by the administration are meant to circumvent ‘the normal appellate process’ while ‘putting a thumb on the scale in favor of the party that won,’ Sotomayor wrote in her dissent.
Sotomayor accused the conservative justices of granting preferential treatment to the administration, saying that ‘most troublingly, the Court’s recent behavior’ has benefited ‘one litigant over all others.’
The other three liberals on the bench – Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Elena Kagan – also dissented, but did not join Sotomayor’s opinion.
‘Claiming one emergency after another, the Government has recently sought stays in an unprecedented number of cases,’ Sotomayor said.
‘It is hard to say what is more troubling – that the Government would seek this extraordinary relief seemingly as a matter of course, or that the Court would grant it.’
The administration, for its part, has argued that it has sought emergency rulings because the lower appellate courts are issuing broad preliminary injunctions that apply to states that weren’t a party to the original lawsuit.
The ruling on the so-called ‘public charge’ rule will take effect on Monday while the case winds its way through the court system.
The new policy significantly expands what factors would be considered to make that determination, and if it is decided that immigrants could potentially become public charges later, that legal residency could be denied.
Under the old rules, people who used non-cash benefits, including food stamps and Medicaid, were not considered public charges.
‘This final rule will protect hardworking American taxpayers, safeguard welfare programs for truly needy Americans, reduce the Federal deficit, and re-establish the fundamental legal principle that newcomers to our society should be financially self-reliant and not dependent on the largess(e) of United States taxpayers,’ the White House said in a statement Saturday.
Sotomayor said that the conservative justices have helped the Trump administration, causing a ‘breakdown in the appellate process.
She wrote that it was part of a ‘now-familiar pattern.’
‘The government seeks emergency relief from this Court’ [after the lower courts decline to approve its rulings] and the high court ‘has been all too quick to grant the government’s reflexive requests.’
Sotomayor accused the conservative justices of being more eager to intervene on behalf of the Trump administration than inmates on death row.
‘The Court often permits executions – where the risk of irreparable harm is the loss of life – to proceed, justifying many of those decisions on purported failures to ‘raise any potentially meritorious claims in a timely manner’,’ she wrote.
‘I fear that this disparity in treatment erodes the fair and balanced decision-making process that this Court must strive to protect.’
The public charge case is the 24th instance in which the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to lift an injunction issued by a lower court.
In contrast, the Obama and George W. Bush administrations did so a combined eight times, according to CNN.
Last month, Justice Neil Gorsuch, the conservative judge appointed by Trump, issued a concurrence explaining the court’s ruling.
In voting to lift the nationwide injunction, Gorsuch issued an opinion criticizing lower courts’ ‘increasingly common’ use of nationwide injunctions to halt government policies. Gorsuch urged the court to confront the issue.
‘What in this gamesmanship and chaos can we be proud of?’ Gorsuch asked.
Sotomayor and the other three liberals dissented – Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Elena Kagan. The justices are seen counterclockwise from top left: Neil Gorsuch, Sotomayor, Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Ginsburg, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, and Breyer
‘It has become increasingly apparent that this court must, at some point, confront these important objections to this increasingly widespread practice,’ Justice Gorsuch wrote.
‘As the brief and furious history of the regulation before us illustrates, the routine issuance of universal injunctions is patently unworkable, sowing chaos for litigants, the government, courts, and all those affected by these conflicting decisions.’
‘I concur in the court’s decision to issue a stay,’ Justice Gorsuch continued.
‘But I hope, too, that we might at an appropriate juncture take up some of the underlying equitable and constitutional questions raised by the rise of nationwide injunctions.’
Two other federal appeals courts previously lifted nationwide injunctions ordered by lower courts blocking the rule.