In a strongly worded recent dissent, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor criticized the conservative majority’s decision to allow the Trump administration’s new “public charge” rule to take effect. Sotomayor was concerned that the ruling was part of a recent trend in which, in her view, the high court is short-circuiting consideration of complex issues working their way through the judiciary.
“Perhaps most troublingly,” she wrote, “the Court’s recent behavior on stay has benefited one litigant over all others”: the executive branch.
There is a lot of evidence to back that claim, none of which could ever penetrate the skull of the man in the Oval Office. From on high, he tweeted: “This is a terrible thing to say. Trying to ‘shame’ some into voting her way? She never criticized Justice Ginsberg (sic) when she called me a ‘faker.’ Both should recuse themselves … on all Trump, or Trump related, matters!”
If the hint of bias is bad for a justice, how is it that Trump identifies the late Antonin Scalia as the gold standard? Scalia never recused himself from immigration rulings despite openly attacking the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy.
Should Samuel Alito have sidelined himself after giving patently partisan speeches before conservative legal organizations?
As for Clarence Thomas, the stalwart of the conservative wing, his spouse is an active political operative, who is reportedly helping purge administration individuals deemed insufficiently loyal.
Lady Justice is blindfolded. Mr. President is blind.
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