Donald Trump vs. His Own Judges
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
President Trump is expert at downplaying his failures, but attacking his own success is something new. That’s what happened Thursday as he lashed out at the conservative Federalist Society after a judge he appointed was part of a unanimous panel that struck down his tariffs.
“I am so disappointed in The Federalist Society because of the bad advice they gave me on numerous Judicial Nominations. This is something that cannot be forgotten!” Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social.
“I was new to Washington, and it was suggested that I use The Federalist Society as a recommending source on Judges. I did so, openly and freely, but then realized that they were under the thumb of a real ‘sleazebag’ named Leonard Leo, a bad person who, in his own way, probably hates America, and obviously has his own separate ambitions.”
Talk about friendly fire. Mr. Trump is attacking the group, and especially the man in Leonard Leo, that were vital to his first-term success on judicial nominations. Mr. Leo helped Mr. Trump pull together his list of potential Supreme Court nominees during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The list was crucial in reassuring conservative voters that he could be trusted on judges. His first nominee, Justice Neil Gorsuch, was on the list. As Mr. Trump said when he nominated Justice Gorsuch, “millions of voters said this was the single most important issue to them when they voted for me for President.”
Mr. Trump’s outburst followed the Court of International Trade’s ruling that the President lacks authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs. One of the judges on that panel, Timothy Reif, was nominated by Mr. Trump in 2018.
But don’t blame the Federalist Society. Judge Reif was recommended to the White House by Robert Lighthizer, who was Mr. Trump’s first-term trade representative. Mr. Leo had nothing to do with it.
Mr. Trump is upset that Judge Reif and two other judges identified limits on the executive’s tariff authority without express Congressional authority. Mr. Trump claims the decision must have been motivated by “purely a hatred of ‘TRUMP’? What other reason could it be?”
Well, how about the law and the Constitution? The panel’s 52-page opinion explains that the emergency act doesn’t give the President unlimited authority to impose tariffs as he sees fit. This is what federal judges are supposed to do, but in Mr. Trump’s universe the only good judge is one who always rules in his favor.
The irony here is that Mr. Trump’s appointments to the federal bench are one of the strongest parts of his legacy: 234 judges in total, including 54 circuit-court judges and Supreme Court Justices Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. His recent nomination of Whitney Hermandorfer for the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals adds another conservative constitutionalist.
Our reporting suggests that Mr. Trump’s broadside wasn’t done without calculation. He’s angry and embarrassed that his signature tariffs are in legal trouble. But rather than reconsider, he wants to deflect blame to someone else. Mr. Trump harbors a grudge against the Federalist Society because it didn’t support his claims that the 2020 election was stolen, but it also didn’t oppose them. The group doesn’t take sides in such political debates.
Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s chief policy aide, is also sore that Mr. Leo didn’t provide money through his political donor network for Mr. Miller’s legal group after the 2020 defeat. But why should Mr. Leo have done so when so many other legal groups already plowed the same ground?
By the way, Mr. Leo responded to Mr. Trump’s fulminations with class. He said in a statement that he is “very grateful for President Trump transforming the Federal Courts, and it was a privilege being involved.”
Mr. Trump is also listening to some in the MAGA movement who think the Federalist Society’s support for originalist judges is passe. Critics like Mike Davis want judges who will issue reliably partisan rulings. But the Federalist Society has succeeded as a movement, and a rare long-term conservative triumph, precisely because it has attracted principled young lawyers who revere the Constitution.
The President should understand that his attacks on judicial conservatives will hurt his own agenda and legacy. His social-media post is the talk of the judicial ranks, and he is making no friends. Mr. Trump is likely to see fewer judges retire, lest they be replaced by partisan hacks. That includes Justices Samuel Alito (age 75) and Clarence Thomas (76). Keep exercising daily, good Justices.
An odd irony of Mr. Trump’s second term is that he has forgotten much of what produced the first-term successes that persuaded GOP primary voters he deserved re-election. His assault on his own judicial legacy is Exhibit A.
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If you want Trump to bite your hand, feed him.
fortunately for america, most of maga is too ignorant to spell fuhrer correctly ...
Obviously Judge Reif has integrity, so Trump made a mistake appointing him.
It shows, yet again, how off the rails and hysterical so much left wing criticism of the court has been for the last 40 years. Whether it was Souter or Alito, every nominee was met with predictions of imminent doom. The apocalyptic craziness ratcheted up under Trump with all sorts of truly bizarre conspiracies about "Trump judges", stealing elections and ending the republic. The depth of the insanity we saw from wide swaths of the left is pretty much impossible to overstate.
The reality is, of course, that Republican nominees to the court are the opposite of partisan hacks. They frustrate partisan Republicans because they do not vote as block, like their democratic colleagues, and do not uniformly support the republican partisan agenda. Trump wants the sort of partisan loyalty Democratic administrations will get from judges like Sotomayor or Jackson. So he probably will no longer pick objective nominees and will turn instead towards the next generation of results oriented judges who've learned from the Democratic justices to pick a result and work backwards from there.
From Trump's point of view, what does it matter? If he nominates an objective judge the judge will be just attacked just as hysterically as a partisan hack. He won't get any credit for picking a solid judge from the left, so why not pick someone who will rule the way he wants all the time? He and the nominee are going to be treated the same no matter what the qualifications are. Like when I believe Gorsuch was nominated, there were pictures of left wing special interest groups with signs made with a space for the nominee's name to be inserted. It's just the same script over and over.
That is because by design the democrat appointed judges lack the intelligence to think for themselves and just follow the lead sheep.
You appear to have skipped over the conservative grounding of the WSJ's editorial board. Makes one wonder what the Hell you are doing here if you are so much more astute than they.
You should probably read what I wrote again.
Once was plenty. Try rewriting it without tossing dead squirrels.