Donald Trump to Ruth Bader Ginsburg: 'Resign'

Donald Trump has called on Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to resign following a series of critical comments she made about the presumptive Republican presidential candidate in media interviews over the course of the last week, in which she called him, among other things, "a faker."

Trump took to Twitter early Wednesday, calling on Ginsburg — a liberal icon who was nominated to the court in 1993 by President Bill Clinton — to resign.

"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.

Trump's call for Ginsburg's resignation goes a step further from comments he made on Tuesday.

"I think it's highly inappropriate that a United States Supreme Court judge gets involved in a political campaign, frankly," Trump told The New York Times. "I think it’s a disgrace to the court, and I think she should apologize to the court. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it."

A New York Times editorial on Wednesday appears to agree with Trump, saying it was "baffling that Justice Ginsburg would choose to descend toward his level and call her own commitment to impartiality into question. Washington is more than partisan enough without the spectacle of a Supreme Court justice flinging herself into the mosh pit."

Ginsburg's words cannot be taken as an off-hand incident after she took a similar tone in three separate interviews over the course of the last week.

"He is a faker," Ginsburg told CNN on Tuesday. "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."

Last week, Ginsburg told The New York Times that she could not imagine the long-term effects of a Trump presidency, saying, "For the country, it could be four years. For the court, it could be — I don’t even want to contemplate that."

Ginsburg also showed her preference of candidates, saying in an interview with the Associated Press, "It's likely that the next president, whoever she will be, will have a few appointments to make," with a smile, the AP noted.

While there is no legal requirement that Supreme Court justices refrain from making political comments, it is unusual, and some critics say she crossed a line. House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin said on Tuesday night that Ginsburg's comments were "out of place" and cited the Supreme Court resolution to the Bush-Gore 2000 election as a reason for justices to avoid offering political commentary.

"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," said Ryan.

And it's not a matter of partisan politics, either. Democrats, including former Hillary Clinton top aide Howard Wolfson, have said Ginsburg shouldn't have made such outwardly political comments.

Legal experts, referring to the Code of Conduct, are pointing to the clause that says judges should not "make speeches for a political organization or candidate, or publicly endorse or oppose a candidate for public office," even if it isn't binding for Supreme Court justices.

"She is as close to the line as humanly possible that we might not want to see our justices, who are objective and above the law, cross," Timothy R. Johnson, professor of political science and law at the University of Minnesota, told TPM.

[Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr Commons]