It takes a lot for the chief justice of the United States to issue a public rebuke to an elected official.

On Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is digging in against the rebuke, provided that lot.

“This morning,” Chief Justice John Roberts said in a statement made available to media, “Sen. Schumer spoke at a rally in front of the Supreme Court while a case was being argued inside.”

Roberts’s statement then refers to a threat Schumer issued that day against conservative Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, both of whom have signaled a willingness to uphold a Louisiana law requiring doctors who perform abortions to acquire hospital admitting privileges.

The Democratic New York senator told a crowd of pro-abortion demonstrators Wednesday, “They’re taking away fundamental rights. I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind!”

Schumer added, “And you will pay the price! You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”

“I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh,



You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price."@SenSchumer speaks to pro-abortion rights protesters outside of the Supreme Court. pic.twitter.com/STwZZSboHb — Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) March 4, 2020

Roberts was not amused.

“Sen. Schumer referred to two members of the court by name,” the chief justice's statement reads. “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. All members of the court will continue to do their job, without fear or favor, from whatever quarter.”

It is unusual to see a chief justice issue a statement of this sort, especially one that is so unambiguously critical of one of the most powerful members of Congress. Then again, there is nothing usual about what Schumer said Wednesday morning. Threatening Supreme Court justices is apparently still frowned upon in the nation’s capital.

Amazingly, Schumer’s office is not backing down. In fact, it is digging in, claiming the senator did not say what everyone clearly heard him say.

“It’s a reference to the political price Republicans will pay for putting them on the court and a warning that the justices will unleash a major grassroots movement on the issue of reproductive rights against the decision,” Schumer spokesman Justin Goodman said Wednesday.

Ah, yes. That part where the Senate minority leader addressed Gorsuch and Kavanaugh by name — that was actually a reference to the Republican Party.

If you think this is ridiculous, it gets worse.

“For Justice Roberts to follow the right wing’s deliberate misinterpretation of what Sen. Schumer said, while remaining silent when President Trump attacked Justices [Sonia] Sotomayor & [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg last week, shows Justice Roberts does not just call balls and strikes,” Goodman added.

This would be a great "gotcha" if the two examples were in any way comparable.

President Trump tweeted in late February that Ginsburg and Sotomayor "should recuse themselves" from adjudicating on matters related either to him or his administration.

The president explained later in a press conference that Ginsburg should probably recuse herself because she said “some things that were obviously very inappropriate” during the 2016 presidential election. She went "wild during the campaign,” Trump added, noting the justice later walked back her comments calling him a “faker” with a big “ego.”

As for Sotomayor, who alleged in a recent dissent that the federal government has developed a nasty habit of running to the Supreme Court whenever it loses in the lower courts, Trump said that “her statement was so inappropriate when you’re a justice of the Supreme Court.”

“And it's almost what she's trying to do is take the people that do feel a different way and get them to vote the way that she would like them to vote,” he told reporters. “I just thought it was so inappropriate. Such a terrible statement for a Supreme Court justice.”

That about sums up Trump's remarks on Sotomayor and Ginsburg. This is the thing that Schumer and his allies in the press want you to think is comparable to the senator saying specifically of Gorsuch and Kavanaugh that they “have released the whirlwind,” that they “will pay the price,” and that they “won’t know what hit” them if they uphold the Louisiana law.

The difference between what Trump said and what Schumer said is the difference between criticism and a threat. Schumer threatened Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. Trump criticized Sotomayor and Ginsburg. It is not that Schumer’s people and their supporters in the press cannot see the difference.

It is that this is the best defense that they have for a member of their team, and by God, they are going to stick to it.