President Donald Trump has privately lashed out at conservative Supreme Court justices for not consistently backing his agenda, taking particular aim at his most recent appointee Amy Coney Barrett.
One week after Barrett enraged MAGA Republicans by recusing herself from an Oklahoma charter school case, CNN reported that the president has become increasingly frustrated by his 2020 Supreme Court pick, fueled by right-wing allies telling him that she is “weak”.
According to unnamed sources, Trump has been increasingly irked by others on the bench, too, including Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, whom the president also nominated during his first term.
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But the main target was reportedly Barrett amid concerns from allies that her rulings have not been consistent with how she presented herself before she was appointed to her lifetime job on the nation’s highest court.
Tensions in MAGA world over Barrett have been simmering for months. In March, for example, Barrett voted to reject Trump’s attempt to freeze nearly $2 billion in foreign aid, prompting legal commentator Mike Davis to declare on Steve Bannon’s podcast: “She’s a rattled law professor with her head up her ass.”
Earlier in January, Barrett sided with Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, a fellow conservative, and the liberal justices of the court to allow Trump to be sentenced in his so-called “hush money” trial.
Trump had been convicted in May after a jury in New York unanimously found him guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal with porn star Stormy Daniels.
But last month’s decision to recuse herself in the Oklahoma case particularly enraged those in Trump’s circle, given the administration had backed the school.
In a statement to the Daily Beast, spokesman Harrison Fields said: “President Trump will always stand with the U.S. Supreme Court, unlike the Democrat Party, which, if given the opportunity, would pack the court, ultimately undermining its integrity.
“The President may disagree with the Court and some of its rulings, but he will always respect its foundational role,” he said.
Barrett was nominated by Trump in 2020, but had become a darling of religious conservatives during her earlier confirmation hearings to sit on the Seventh Circuit.
Appointed to the Supreme Court at the age of 48, she was the youngest woman justice to sit on the bench and also happened to be the first mother of school-aged children to serve there.
While Barrett has joined conservatives on major rulings to move US law to the right, including on abortion and affirmative action, MAGA acolytes have become increasingly angered by her more centrist rulings, with some even calling her “evil” and a “DEI” hire.
“Amy Coney Barrett was a DEI appointee,” far-right influencer, Laura Loomer wrote on X in March.
The post also featured a photo of Barrett’s family, which includes two children adopted from Haiti, who are Black.
Her supporters, however, have fought back.
“Barrett is a terrific justice, and, in most cases, those who are criticizing her are forgetting the proper role of the judiciary,” wrote National Review senior editor Charles C.W. Cooke in a recent column titled “In defense of Justice Amy Coney Barrett.”
