Ginsburg, Sotomayor bias is ‘obvious,’ Trump says
Ginsburg, Sotomayor singled out in tweets
High court justices should recuse themselves from cases involving him, he suggests.
NEW DELHI – President Donald Trump suggested Tuesday that two liberal Supreme Court justices should recuse themselves from any cases involving his administration because of their statements about him and a Supreme Court dissent Trump viewed as critical of him.
The president posted a tweet Monday in which he accused Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor of bias against him.
“It’s very obvious,” Trump said at a news conference in India, where he was wrapping up a 36-hour trip. “Justice Ginsburg should (recuse herself) because she went wild during the campaign when I was running.”
“I just don’t know how they cannot recuse themselves from anything having to do with Trump or Trump-related,” the president said. He said Sotomayor – who was appointed by President Barack Obama – is “trying to shame people with perhaps a different view.”
Quoting Fox News host Laura Ingraham in a tweet Monday evening, Trump said Sotomayor accused Republicanappointed Supreme Court justices of “being biased in favor of Trump.”
The dissent that drew the ire of Trump and other conservatives involved a Supreme Court case about the legality of the Trump administration’s “public charge” rule. The Department of Homeland Security rule would allow the government to bar documented immigrants from residency or green cards if they receive or are deemed likely to need noncash benefits, such as food stamps, Medicaid or housing vouchers, for more than a year.
Friday, the court lifted a lower court’s injunction to block the rule’s implementation in Illinois. In her dissent on that ruling, Sotomayor blasted the court’s conservatives and their deference to the government in similar arguments.