begin quote from:
Ruth Bader Ginsburg: 'I regret making' Donald Trump remarks
| CNN | - |
(CNN)
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Thursday she regrets
remarks she made earlier this week to CNN and other news outlets
criticizing presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg: 'I regret making' Donald Trump remarks
Story highlights
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Thursday that she regretted comments she made about Donald Trump
- The Supreme Court justice told CNN and other news outlets earlier this week that Trump was 'a faker'
(CNN)Supreme
Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Thursday she regrets remarks she
made earlier this week to CNN and other news outlets criticizing
presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
"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."
Ginsburg extensively criticized Trump as "a faker" in an interview with CNN earlier this week.
Her
comments enraged Trump and leading congressional Republicans, and
thrust the 83-year-old justice into the middle of the heated
presidential campaign.
Ginsburg's
remarks to CNN as well as to the Associated Press and The New York Times
created a highly unusual week at the Supreme Court. Not only was it
unprecedented for a member of the current court to delve so deeply into a
presidential campaign, but a statement expressing regret is also quite
rare.
"He
is a faker," she told CNN legal analyst and Supreme Court biographer
Joan Biskupic of the real estate mogul, 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."
Justice
Stephen Breyer was asked about her comments Wednesday and according to
the event organizers at the Sun Valley Writer's Conference he declined
to comment saying, "If I had an opinion, I wouldn't express it."
Trump
called on Ginsburg to resign Wednesday, joining an outpouring of
criticism that is giving a divided Republican Party a fresh common
target.
"Justice Ginsburg of the
U.S. Supreme Court has embarrassed all by making very dumb political
statements about me. Her mind is shot - resign!" Trump tweeted.
Despite
the statement, Trump will likely continue to use the comments to help
excite the base and warn about the liberal leanings of the court and
danger of a President Hillary Clinton adding more liberals to the bench
should she win the White House.
Ginsburg's
criticism had caused controversy not only in political circles but also
among legal ethicists who suggested Wednesday that if the current
election were ever to come down to a Bush v. Gore-like challenge, Ginsburg would have to recuse herself.
"A
federal law requires all federal judges, including the justices, to
recuse themselves if their 'impartiality might reasonably be
questioned'," said Stephen Gillers, a legal ethicist at New York
University School of Law. "Under this test, Justice Ginsburg's remarks
would prevent her from sitting in the unlikely event of a 'Clinton v.
Trump' case that determines the next president."
Biskupic said she believes the statement was a response to the criticism from across the ideological spectrum.
"[S]he
couldn't help but be surprised by what's happened in the last 72 hours
with so much second-guessing from even folks who are her fans on the
left," Biskupic said on CNN's "At This Hour" on Thursday morning. "I
think she felt like it was important for her to clear the air. I think
she felt like she wanted to acknowledge that she made a mistake instead
of just waiting to hope that the issue would die down."
"Justice
Ginsburg did the right thing by returning to a position of electoral
neutrality," said Steven Lubet of Northewestern Pritzker School of Law. "
That was good for both the Court and the political system," he said.
Congressional leaders were quick to blast Ginsburg's comment as inappropriate.
"I
find it very peculiar, and I think it's out of place," House Speaker
Paul Ryan told CNN's Jake Tapper during a CNN town hall Tuesday night.
"For someone on the Supreme Court who is going to be calling balls and
strikes in the future based upon whatever the next president and
Congress does, that strikes me as inherently biased and out of the
realm."
Ginsburg was appointed to
the high court by President Bill Clinton in 1993, and is now the senior
member of the liberal wing and leading voice countering conservative
Chief Justice Roberts. She has drawn a cult-like following among young
people who have nicknamed her The Notorious R.B.G., a play on American
rapper The Notorious B.I.G.
The
83-year-old Ginsburg has a busy summer of travel ahead of her. In the
coming days she will travel to Europe and on July 27 she is expected to
take part in a program with performers of a production of the Merchant
of Venice which will take place in Venice, Italy.
Later in August she will provide commentary for an Opera festival in Cooperstown, New York.
Chief
Justice John Roberts has been critical in public about the rancor
between the political branches, and in a speech in 2014 at the
University of Nebraska expressed concern that the discord impeded their
ability to carry out their functions.
"I don't want it to spill over and affect us," he said.
"That's
not the way we do business. We are not Democrats and Republicans," he
said. "In nine years I've never seen any sort of political issue like
that arise between us. "
No comments:
Post a Comment