Remember that time leftists panicked over the historical “insurrectionist” flag flown at a beach house by Justice Samuel Alito’s wife? Or when they shrieked that Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife texted in support of Donald Trump’s efforts to challenge fraud in the 2020 presidential election?
Democrat angst over those and other incidents was such that they tried to impose “ethics reform” on the Supreme Court, along with calling for Alito and Thomas to, at various times, recuse themselves.
Those episodes of Democrat derangement occurred a year or more ago. Yet just last week, Chief Justice John Roberts once again asserted judicial independence in a way that implied not only his sentiments for judicial supremacy but his opposition to Trump.
With that in mind, let’s consider remarks made by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Speaking to the far-left American Bar Association last Thursday, she seemingly urged hundreds of lawyers to keep turning up the legal heat on the president. It was implied and not explicit, of course. Even Sotomayor, whom some consider the intellectual lightweight on the Court, is too smart to make plain her Trump Derangement Syndrome.
“If you’re not used to fighting and losing battles, then don’t become a lawyer,” she said. “Our job is to stand up for people who can’t do it themselves.” She added, “Right now, we can’t lose the battles we are facing.” Furthermore, she said, “We need trained and passionate and committed lawyers to fight this fight. With all the uncertainty that exists at this moment, this is our time to stand up and be heard. For me, being here with you is an act of solidarity.”
The New York Times was certainly able to read between the lines:
Justice Sotomayor spoke in general terms, but her remarks came against the backdrop of immense stress on lawyers and the legal system from the Trump administration. That tension included a string of executive orders from President Trump retaliating against prominent law firms, stripping their lawyers of security clearances, barring them from entering federal buildings and discouraging federal officials from interacting with the firms.
She was once a summer associate at one of those firms, Paul Weiss.
Got that? Trump is putting “immense stress on lawyers and the legal system,” not the other way around.
Anyway, aren’t justices supposed to be impartial? Yet there’s Sotomayor, saying “we” and expressing “solidarity” with a decidedly left-wing group. That’s not surprising, of course; Sotomayor’s ideology was not a mystery until Thursday. For starters, she has previously advocated for abortion and criticized the Court’s decision on presidential immunity. Infamously, before Barack Obama nominated her to the Court, she said her sex and race are key to her decision-making: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”
It is a bit surprising to see a sitting justice using fighting words when there are active cases before the Court challenging administration actions and involving the ABA.
In short, if Alito and Thomas were supposed to recuse themselves because their wives have opinions of their own, then surely Sotomayor should recuse herself when she has so blatantly revealed her ideological bias against this president. She just told an audience of left-wing lawyers that she has no interest in impartiality because she’s in it to “fight” for the cause. Obviously, she’ll never recuse herself because “we can’t lose the battles we are facing,” but that means basically every decision she makes concerning Trump or the ABA is suspect and arguably illegitimate.
Three years ago, she said she hoped “to regain the public’s confidence that we — as a court, as an institution — have not lost our way.” Once again revealing herself to be a left-wing activist instead of an impartial justice is a funny way to regain public confidence.
