This is Bloomberg Law with June Grassoe from Bloomberg Radio. The protests were allowed at an abortion rights rally outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday, as the Justice has heard arguments in the court's first abortion case in four years. Sin A minority leader, Chuck Schumer had these words for the two newest members of the Court. I want to tell you. I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won't know what hit you if you go forward with
these awful decisions. That led Chief Justice John Roberts to deliver an extraordinary rebuke of Schumer, chastising him from making threatening statements that quote are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous. Joining me is Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond Law School. Call first, let me get your
take on whether Schumer's comments were inappropriate. Well, actually, there was an exchange this morning on the Senate floor and a senator Schumer apologized basically for his comments and saying he didn't intend to be threatening the justices in any way. But I think he was caught up in the rhetoric of the moment when it was highly charged and regretted it.
He also said something about Brooklyn, and we talked tough in Brooklyn, and so I think he's tried to walk back and say he really wasn't in any way threatening justices, though Leader McConnell blasted him for fifteen minutes on the floor, apparently talking about Schumer and other Democrats undermining the institution of the Senate, which is ludicrous coming from the majority leader, given what he's done to the institutions of the Senate
since he became the majority leader. So it just seems like there's a lot of rhetoric on all sides and they need to tone that down. But much of this has been triggered, of course, by the attacks on judicial independence by the President of the United States and the failure of judges to speak up about that since it started at the time of the campaign in twenty six and has continued, including I think last night he weighed
in on Twitter, as you referred to. In the last year alone, Trump has attacked the integrity of the federal judiciary in general and targeted individual judges, including the judge and the Roger Stone case repeatedly criticized to liberal female Supreme Court Justice is last week one for a dissenting opinion which he misinterpreted. The Chief said nothing during all that time. So does this look to the general public
like selective outrage. Well, that's a good question. And he did speak up if you remember Thanksgiving eighteen about the constant criticism from Trump about Obama judges and made a
relatively strong statement at that time. But the attacks that have gone on from the President, but generally as to the courts and then more specifically as to judges like Amy Berman Jackson handling the Roger Stone case and many other judges, especially on the Ninth Circuit, and judges who rule against him, and the rhetoric all the way around on to be toned down. But it's important for the Chief Justice to speak out and defend judicial independence and
an even handed, thoughtful and careful way. And I think people have been concerned that he hasn't spoken out enough about the president's attacks on the federal judiciary because that undermines respect for the judiciary and that absolutely needs to be protected. The courts don't have either sword or the purse, and they need to be sure that the public were respects their rulings, and so everybody needs to work on
judicial independence and making sure that it's a paramount. It also seems stark because Trump just recently attacked Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Sonya so To Mayor and told them that they should recuse themselves in any case related to him. So I had expected the Chief to speak up then, Well, I think a lot of people did. It may be unfortunate that he didn't. Of course, the President didn't understand what he was saying about recusal or how that works, and there was no basis really for
asking them to recuse. In fact, what Justice Soto Mayor said in her descent didn't speak in any way to the President. It spoke partly to the way the government has incessantly raced to the court to stay these lower court rulings. That the President doesn't lie and was just speaking to the court itself and how it should handle those emergency requests which are accelerating with ever more vehemence from the Solicitor General's Office, principally in the Justice Department.
In this day of extremes, where is the line between correct criticism of opinions and attacks on the judiciary. Well, I think it's important to not have personal attacks on
particular judges or even particular courts. But it's certainly appropriate to analyze and criticize the opinions that judges and justices right on their merits and show why you believe that they're inappropriate, incorrectly decided, or whatever your view is about that, but not to attack them personally or to suggest that they have some hidden agenda or our only politicians in
robes those kinds of criticisms. But sometimes people are very exercised about particular issues and they say more than probably it is appropriate. Thanks Carl. That's Carl Tobias of the University of Richmond Law School. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg