OPINION:
Dozens of House Republicans have penned a letter to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, asking her to recuse from the case of President Donald Trump’s travel ban.
She should. Even the New York Times acknowledges Ginsburg’s anti-Trump rhetoric is cause for judicial concern.
“Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg needs to drop the political punditry and the name-calling,” the editorial board wrote in mid-2016, reminding how the justice publicly stated at the height of campaign season that she found the idea of a Trump presidency unimaginable, that she considered Trump a “faker” with “an ego,” and that should Trump win, it would be time for her “to move to New Zealand” with her husband.
And now Ginsburg is supposed to determine the legalities of Trump’s travel ban.
And now the country’s supposed to give Ginsburg a pass on judicial ethics, believing her possible of rising about her political rhetoric — even though the very reasons Trump’s travel ban has been shuttered by previous courts is due to his own campaign rhetoric.
Right. Because judges are above the political fray? Except — when they aren’t?
“You’re bound by law to recuse yourself from participation in this case,” wrote the 58 Republican lawmakers. “There is no doubt that your impartiality can be reasonably questioned; indeed, it would be unreasonable not to question your impartiality.”
Exactly.
Ginsburg, conservatives know, is a left-leaner and already likely to rule against the Republican White House on this. She is, after all, the justice who defended the use of foreign law while deciding sovereign U.S. cases.
But now history will record her predictable Trump v. International Refugee Assistance Project vote as based on anti-Trump, not pro-Constitution.
She will be remembered as the justice who hated Trump, rather than the justice who stood with law and order and constitutional concern.
Recusing herself is the only way to preserve any shred of dignity. She has a chance to wrap her judicial career with a show of honor — by taking the path of noble regard for the high office. She ought to take it.
It won’t change conservatives’ minds about her long-running left of center rulings. But it will provide a sigh of relief to Americans who’ve watched with growing alarm the move of the judiciary from unbiased to activist — and earn her a major nod of respect in the meanwhile. Not a bad way to depart. Not a bad legacy to leave.
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