Trump takes his unusual battle with the judiciary to the personal level

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Last edited Wed Feb 26, 2020, 12:54 PM - Edit history (1)

NEW: Trump takes his unusual battle with the judiciary to the personal level, as Supreme Court prepares to consider next month requests for his financial records w/
@AshleyRParker

Link to tweet

Courts & Law

Trump dials up his unusual battle with the judiciary

By Robert Barnes and Ashley Parker
Feb. 25, 2020 at 7:08 p.m. EST

President Trump on Tuesday called on two liberal justices of the Supreme Court to recuse themselves from anything “Trump-related,” escalating an un­or­tho­dox battle with the judiciary from which even his own lawyers have advised retreat.

In tweets and comments at a news conference in India — and just a month before the Supreme Court is to consider congressional and prosecutors’ requests for the president’s closely guarded financial records — Trump targeted Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

[Trump targets Sotomayor, Ginsburg for recusal]

Trump interpreted as biased a dissent from Sotomayor about his administration’s tendency to seek emergency interventions from the Supreme Court. He reminded Ginsburg of remarks she made about him as a candidate in 2016, for which she has expressed regret. His comments appeared to be based on a Fox News segment rather than a parsing of Sotomayor’s seven-page dissent in an immigration case.

The president’s broadside breached what normally is an arm’s-length distance between the White House and the high court, and cast the disagreements into starkly personal terms. It follows Trump’s recent attacks on Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who oversaw the conviction of his friend Roger Stone, and underscored complaints from Attorney General William P. Barr that the president’s tweets and statements were making it “impossible” for Barr to do his job.

{snip}

Meagan Flynn and Brittany Shammas contributed to this report.

Robert Barnes
Robert Barnes has been a Washington Post reporter and editor since 1987. He joined The Post to cover Maryland politics, and he has served in various editing positions, including metropolitan editor and national political editor. He has covered the Supreme Court since November 2006. Follow https://twitter.com/scotusreporter

Ashley Parker
Ashley Parker is a White House reporter for The Washington Post. She joined The Post in 2017, after 11 years at the New York Times, where she covered the 2012 and 2016 presidential campaigns and Congress, among other things. Follow https://twitter.com/ashleyrparker

[CincyDem]

1. The best defense is a pre-emptive offense.

I think Lakoff or someone calls this pre-framing. He's warming up his base to react if the financial records are released. It could be a 9-0 vote but they're going to blame Sotomayor and RGB for it.

He's such an asshat (that seems like a far too tame descriptor).

[Under The Radar]

2. Delegitimatize The Supreme Court just as he did Congress

Now there is no authority that Trump must answer to. Because he feels the bias is disqualifying, he will not abide by any ruling against him and with Barr and McConnell on his side, there is no enforcement mechanism.
Hail Cesar