Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her Supreme Court chambers in Washington in July 2014. (Cliff Owen/AP)
It's a political cliche at this point to joke about moving to another 
country if a certain presidential candidate doesn't win. Gobs of 
Americans were headed to Canada if George W. Bush was reelected 
in 2004. A similar contingent threatened to flood across our
 northern border when Barack Obama was elected and reelected.
Generally, though, you don't hear a Supreme Court justice talking 
like this. In fact, you generally don't hear a Supreme Court justice 
talking at all — much less about the big political issues of the day.
Most justices aren't Ruth Bader Ginsburg, though. And in a new 
New York Times interview, Ginsburg doesn't hold a thing back 
when it comes to the 2016 election.
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“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 told the Times' Adam Liptak. “For the
 country, it could be four years. For the court, it could be — 
I don’t even want to contemplate that.”

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Here are the 11 justices Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says
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Ginsburg also recalled something her late husband said about 
such matters: "Now it’s time for us to move to New Zealand."
This appears to be a joke, but Ginsburg's sentiment here is crystal 
clear: She thinks Donald Trump would be a dangerous president. 
And in saying it, she goes to a place justices almost never do —
 and perhaps never have — for some very good reasons.
Ginsburg is known for pushing the bounds of a justice's public
 comments and has earned something of a cult following on the
 left. But some say she just went too far.
"I find it baffling actually that she says these things," said Arthur 
Hellman, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh. "She must
 know that she shouldn’t be. However tempted she might be, she
 shouldn’t be doing it."
Similarly, Howard Wolfson, a former top aide to Hillary Clinton 
and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, said 
Ginsburg shouldn't have said it.
Others wondered what impact this might have on Ginsburg's 
decision to hear cases involving Trump.
And that's really a key reason justices don't talk like Ginsburg did.
 Sometimes they have to hear cases involving political issues and 
people. Having offered their unprompted opinions about such 
things can lead to questions about prejudice and potential recusal
 from future cases.
As Greenfield notes, Ginsburg was a part of the court that decided
 who the president was when the 2000 election was thrown to the
 Supreme Court, so this isn't uncharted territory. Had she said 
something similar about either Bush or Al Gore, would she have
 been able to hear the case?
Louis Virelli is a Stetson University law professor who just wrote 
a book on Supreme Court recusals, titled "Disqualifying the High 
Court." He said that "public comments like the ones that Justice
 Ginsburg made could be seen as grounds for her to recuse herself 
from cases involving a future Trump administration. I don't
 necessarily think she would be required to do that, and I certainly
 don't believe that she would in every instance, but it could invite 
challenges to her impartiality based on her public comments."
Hellman said Ginsburg's comments could muddy the waters when 
it comes to decisions not just involving Trump but also his policies — 
something that could come up regularly should he win the presidency.
"It would cast doubt on her impartiality in those decisions," Hellman
 said. "If she has expressed herself as opposing the election of Donald
 Trump, her vote to strike down a Trump policy would be under a cloud."
Ed Whelan, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and who
 once clerked for conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, has criticized 
Ginsburg before for her public comments. But he said this one is 
more indefensible than any of its predecessors.
"I think this exceeds the others in terms of her indiscretions," 
Whelan said. "I am not aware of any justice ever expressing views 
on the merits or demerits of a presidential candidate in the midst 
of the campaign. I am not a fan of Donald Trump's at all. But the 
soundness or unsoundness of her concerns about Donald Trump 
has no bearing on whether it was proper for her to say what she 
said."
Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California at Irvine, 
said it's valid to question how Ginsburg might have to handle a
 potential Trump case — up to and including a Clinton v. Trump
 case.
"I think this is ultimately a question for judicial ethicists, but I do
 think following these comments it is a legitimate question to raise, 
should Donald Trump’s campaign come to the Court with any legal 
questions before the election," Hasen wrote on his blog.

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Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg talks about her collection of Notorious 
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(Courtesy of 92nd Street Y)
It's not clear that there is any real precedent for what Ginsburg just did.
Then-Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was criticized by some in 2000
 after Newsweek reported her saying, "This is terrible," at an election-
night watch party after Florida was prematurely called for Al Gore. 
Some argued that she should have recused herself from Bush v. Gore.
apologize for appearing to advocate against Bush's reelection. Guido 
Calabresi, a judge on the Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, had 
compared the 2000 Bush v. Gore decision to the elevation of 
Mussolini in Italy and Hitler.
''The reason I emphasize that is because that is exactly what happened 
when Mussolini was put in by the king of Italy,'' Calabresi said. ''That is 
what happened when Hindenburg put Hitler in.''
Calabresi was formally admonished for his comments, but that's not 
a possibility with Ginsburg, because Supreme Court justices are not
 beholden to such rules when it comes to their public comments. 
Justices are generally more circumspect because of professional 
pressure and self-discipline — not because there is a written rule 
that they must be.
But for Ginsburg, it's clear that this has become a calculated risk 
that she is going to take. The New York Times comments weren't
 even the only time she has been critical of Trump. In an Associated 
Press interviewpublished Friday, she also said a Trump presidency
 is basically unthinkable.
In an interview Thursday in her court office, the 83-year-old

justice and leader of the court's liberal wing said she presumes

Democrat Hillary Clinton will be the next president. Asked

what if Republican Donald Trump won instead, she said, "I

don't want to think about that possibility, but if it should be,

then everything is up for grabs."
That's twice in two interviews — i.e. not a coincidence.
Ginsburg's comments are and will surely continue to be celebrated 
on the political left. For those concerned about the line between the 
judiciary and politics, though, they could be the subject of plenty of 
debate — the kind of debate that could set a precedent of its own.