Justice Amy Coney Barrett ignites anger on the right after ruling against Trump
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The Supreme Court’s closely divided decision this week to reject the Trump administration’s freeze on foreign aid unleashed a torrent of vitriol from the president’s supporters largely aimed at a single justice — Amy Coney Barrett .
But while Roberts has drawn the ire of conservatives in the past, most notably with his 2012 vote to save President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, most of the anger on Wednesday and Thursday was directed at Barrett.
Barrett, who previously taught at Notre Dame Law School, was hailed by conservatives — and excoriated by liberals — when Trump nominated her in 2020 and cemented a 6-3 supermajority. She has voted with conservatives in landmark cases to overturn Roe v. Wade, end affirmative action in college admissions, and provide Trump and other presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution for official actions. The right nevertheless has come down hard on her as a traitor, and their criticism escalated this week.
“She is evil, chosen solely because she checked identity politics boxes,” conservative activist Mike Cernovich posted on X , suggesting Barrett was put on the bench because she is a woman. “Another DEI hire. It always ends badly.”
“She’s a rattled law professor with her head up her a--,” Mike Davis, a former law clerk to another Trump nominee, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, said on Stephen K. Bannon’s podcast on Wednesday.
In a slew of other social media posts, Trump’s supporters suggested Barrett should be impeached, with Eric Daugherty, a conservative media personality, posting : “Democrats are loving Amy Coney Barrett lately. Tells you everything.”
Some of the attacks centered on interpretations of Barrett’s body language after she greeted Trump before his address to a joint session of Congress this week. While justices traditionally attend the annual address, they remain seated throughout the speech and usually take pains not to applaud or react.
On his “War Room” podcast , Bannon played a video clip widely shared online of Barrett, standing stoically alongside three other current justices, after shaking hands with Trump. Bannon suggested Barrett had given the president the “stink eye.”
“That’s not a look of admiration,” he said.
Nancy Gertner, a retired federal judge in Massachusetts, said that criticism comes with the job but that the personal attacks targeting Barrett are sexist and cross the line.
“That’s offensive to the nth degree and clearly not something one would say about a man,” Gertner said. “That is so far from fair and legitimate criticism of an enormously accomplished woman and says something about the atmosphere Trump has created.”
That rhetoric has been called out by leading legal organizations and Democratic lawmakers who point to a rise in security threats against federal judges.
“[T]he intimidating words and actions we have heard must end,” William R. Bay, president of the American Bar Association, said in a statement this week. “They are designed to cow our country’s judges, our country’s courts and our legal profession.”
“Violence, intimidation, and defiance directed at judges because of their work undermine our Republic, and are wholly unacceptable,” wrote Roberts, who along with Barrett did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
The attacks were in full view this week in the hours after the Supreme Court announced its ruling that clears the way for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development to restart nearly $2 billion in payments for work already completed by global health groups.
In January, Roberts, before Trump took office, Barrett and the three liberals refused to delay his sentencing in New York for a criminal conviction in a case involving a hush money payment in 2016.
Barrett, the youngest justice at 53, was Trump’s third nominee during his first term , replacing liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a strong supporter of abortion rights. Democrats were outraged when then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) pushed Barrett through just days before the 2020 presidential election, instead of leaving the seat open for the next White House occupant to fill.
But she has also emerged as an unpredictable swing vote . She dissented last term when the court said federal prosecutors overstepped in using an obstruction statute to charge defendants accused of disrupting the electoral vote count on Jan. 6, 2021. This week, she again joined the liberals in dissent when the majority struck down rules regulating the discharge of water pollution in a decision narrowing the Clean Water Act.
Jeremy Fogel, a former federal judge in California, said judges bring to the bench their different life experiences and philosophies that affect how they do their job.
“But it’s inappropriate to expect them to decide cases based on the political preferences — right, left or center — of any group, including those that may have supported their appointment,” he said.
Criticism is fair, Fogel added, but it’s “it’s equally inappropriate to vilify them personally simply because they don’t adhere to political orthodoxy in every case.”
“It’s unfortunate that in today’s hyper-partisan atmosphere, she gets so little credit for doing exactly what judges are supposed to do.”
There is a long history of Republicans being disappointed in justices chosen by their party’s presidents. Conservatives turned on then-Justice David H. Souter, a nominee of President George H.W. Bush who became one of the court’s most liberal members. Roberts infuriated conservatives with his Obamacare vote and, during Trump’s first term, when he voted to block efforts to put a citizenship question on the 2020 Census and rescind an Obama-era plan to protect young undocumented immigrants known as “dreamers” from deportation.
Kermit Roosevelt, a University of Pennsylvania law professor who clerked for Souter, said it is perhaps unsurprising that Republicans are targeting Barrett over her independent streak.
Barrett reaches decisions, he said, after a “process of good-faith, analytical reasoning.”
“She’s able to tell when arguments don’t make any sense, when what someone is saying is BS,” said Roosevelt, who overlapped with Barrett during their respective clerkships at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. “When what they’re saying doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, she calls them on it and won’t go along with it just because it’s conservative.”
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Careful Amy, they're going to purposely mistake you for one of us.
she probably didn't like the idea of spending the future religious holidays at home with just her husband ...
Is he another one putting up those crazy inverse flags she can't stop him from doing ...?
Wow, wonder how this came about. Seem to recall a certain someone needed gag orders to protect judges and court personnel from harm, as all his henchmen openly more so encouraged as much, say, Jan 6th style while all the while they went with denial that just makes them look silly.
The blame game is a trap that (in)conveniently catches the setter.
Barrett and Roberts, our Republic's last line of defense! )))SHUDDER(((
I am reacessing Barrett, there are shades of Sandra Day O'Connor about her. And Roberts? I expect he's hearing history rapping his head with a gavel.
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Sadly, the facts do not support your bogus assertion.
UMD-Led Study Shows Disparities in Violence Among Extremist Groups | CCJS l Criminology and Criminal Justice Department l University of Maryland
RIGHT-WING TERRORISM IN THE UNITED STATES | Office of Justice Programs
Timeline: Far-Right Terrorism in the United States
lol ….. Many of you should feel pretty stupid about all those attacks you made on judge Barrett in the past. You won’t but you should.
.. and on the other side of the coin? Don't bother to answer, the question is rhetorical.
Problem for the folks I speak of …. The coin is a Loonie ….
I'm looking at a Loonie right now, one side depicts a Loon (beautiful bird with a haunting sound), the otherside is a depiction of Elsie MacGill, a.k.a Queen of the Hurricanes (the WWII airplane).
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I ignored it.
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The question of the day - will Comey Barrett succumb to right wing MAGA social media pressure? Only time will tell. My guess would be yes.
Of course she will, concerning any rulings she makes in the future you don't agree with. I mean, that's the metric you judge by, right? Any ruling that doesn't align with your views must be MAGA and so, that's what you'll say.
From what I've seen, she's the least partisan justice of them all. She'll follow the law and keep Trump grounded.
She is 1/9th of the group of adults that is supposed to interpret the law and has a slim chance of "keeping Trump grounded".
All of the talking heads, legal experts on all channels said the USAID contracts that have been completed need to be paid,
post haste, basic contract law, yada yada yada, and it should be a 9-0 vote at SCOTUS
and yet Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Thomas found excuses to vote for Executive power and not Basic Contracts 101.
What an ignorant post that shows a lack of understanding on the Judiciary
Replace 'Judiciary' with 'anything' and the same could be said about that post. Please refrain from commenting on my seeds, there are a myriad of others to troll.