Sen. Lindsey Graham backed the liberal justices on the Supreme Court after President Trump argued that they should recuse themselves from cases related to himself.
Trump made the case for the justices to distance themselves from cases pertaining to him after Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a scathing rebuke of the conservative justices in her dissenting opinion in the Wolf v. Cook County case.
“No, I don’t think they’re going to recuse themselves … You know, judges have opinions, too, and, you know, she was pretty vocal in her dissent, and I disagree with her dissent, but she has a right to do it. I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Graham said to a gaggle of reporters on Tuesday.
In a late night tweet on Monday, the president argued that Sotomayor and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg should recuse themselves from “all Trump, or Trump related, matters,” citing a quote made on Laura Ingraham’s The Ingraham Angle.
“‘Sotomayor accuses GOP appointed Justices of being biased in favor of Trump.’ @IngrahamAngle @FoxNews This is a terrible thing to say. Trying to ‘shame’ some into voting her way? She never criticized Justice Ginsberg when she called me a ‘faker’. Both should recuse themselves on all Trump, or Trump related, matters,” Trump wrote. “While ‘elections have consequences,’ I only ask for fairness, especially when it comes to decisions made by the United States Supreme Court.”
Sotomayor, nominated by President Barack Obama in 2009, issued a strong dissent to the Supreme Court’s decision released Friday on Wolf v. Cook County, a case dealing with immigration policy. In her opinion, she wrote that her conservative colleagues on the Supreme Court, who have the majority, are “putting a thumb on the scale in favor of” the Trump administration.
The court’s ruling, which was a 5-4 vote along ideological lines, granted the Trump administration’s demand for an emergency request to stay an injunction in an Illinois case regarding the restriction of low-income immigrants from entering the United States.
The case stems from a policy the Trump administration announced in August. The policy, which can now go into effect while it goes through the legal system, would essentially allow the U.S. government to turn away immigrants who are more likely to rely on government-assisted programs.
