Politics

Chief Justice Roberts Condemns Schumer For ‘Dangerous’ And ‘Threatening Statements’

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Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said House Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s Wednesday remarks were “dangerous” and “threatening statements.”

Schumer said during a rally in front of the United States Supreme Court that Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh “released the whirlwind,” and would “pay the price.” The New York Democrat also said the pair “won’t know what hit you” if they side in a way that hurts abortion access in a case before the court Wednesday.

In a rare response, Roberts responded: “Justices know that criticism comes with the territory, but threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous.”

NEW: Chief Justice Roberts chastises Schumer for “threatening” statements about Kavanaugh, Gorsuch. pic.twitter.com/jQWHJTfpks

— Greg Stohr (@GregStohr) March 4, 2020

“All members of the Court will continue to do their job, without fear or favor, from whatever quarter,” Roberts added.

Following Roberts’s response, Schumer spokesman Justin Goodman told the Daily Caller News Foundation: “Women’s health care rights are at stake and Americans from every corner of the country are in anguish about what the court might do to them,”

“For Justice Roberts to follow the right wing’s deliberate misinterpretation of what Sen. Schumer said, while remaining silent when President Trump attacked Justices Sotomayor and Ginsberg last week, shows Justice Roberts does not just call balls and strikes,” he continued.

Trump called for Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg to recuse themselves on cases involving his administration Feb. 25.

Schumer’s initial remarks were spoken Wednesday at a rally in front of the Supreme Court, where justices heard June Medical Services v. Russo, a case in which an abortion provider is challenging a 2014 Louisiana state law that requires abortion providers to have admitting privileges in a hospital within 30 miles of the abortion facility.

“I want to tell you Gorsuch and I want to tell you Kavanaugh,” Schumer said, video from the event shows. “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,” he added.

Following those remarks, Goodman told the DCNF Schumer was referencing the political price Republicans “will pay for putting them on the court,” and was “a warning that the justices will unleash major grassroots movement on the issue of reproductive rights against the decision.”