Grassley calls Ginsburg comments about Trump ‘inappropriate’

CEDAR RAPIDS - Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's criticism of Donald Trump was 'inappropriate” and the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Wednesday she should apologize.

Ginsberg touched off a firestorm for her comments about the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, including calling him a 'faker.”

'I can't imagine what this place would be - I can't imagine what the country would be - with Donald Trump as our president,” Ginsburg said in a New York Times interview July 8.

She went further in a more recent interview with CNN.

'He has no consistency about him,” said Ginsburg, a Supreme Court justice since 1993. '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.”

Grassley agreed with Ginsburg's critics who said it was wrong for a Supreme Court justice to insert herself into the presidential campaign.

'It hurts the court when she does that,” said Grassley. 'I think they were very inappropriate. I think I'd say she ought to apologize and let it go at that. She ought to stay out of it.”

Grassley didn't go as far as Trump, who called for Ginsburg's resignation.

'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.

Grassley also didn't go so far as to call for Ginsburg, 83, to recuse herself from any Supreme Court cases involving Trump if he should be elected president.

'I think they have very precise rules within the Supreme Court of when recusal is necessary,” he said. 'She ought to follow those rules.”

Grassley didn't address comments the justice made about his refusal as Judiciary chairman to hold hearings on President Barack Obama's nomination of federal Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.

'That's their job,” she said. 'There's nothing in the Constitution that says the president stops being president in his last year.”

The nine-member court has been short-handed since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February.

Grassley has said he won't hold hearings on a Supreme Court nominee until after a new president has been elected.