Posted on 03/08/2025 9:17:39 AM PST by RandFan
CHASING AMY: In its restless quest to display total dominance over Washington, the MAGA movement this week found a new and unlikely object of scorn: Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
You’d be forgiven if you missed how one of Donald Trump’s own court picks — particularly one who has rarely strayed from the conservative majority — got crossways with his supporters.
Barrett’s great judicial apostasy, as the very-online MAGA right sees it, came when she joined the 5-4 majority that ruled against Trump in Department of State v. AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition. Essentially, as our senior legal affairs reporter Josh Gerstein explains it to Playbook, she joined Chief Justice John Roberts and the liberal justices to lift a Trump administration hold on almost $2 billion owed to foreign-aid contractors and groups.
Not exactly a major MAGA bucket list item nor one of Trump’s applause lines that killed at his campaign rallies.
Barrett had already managed to get on the wrong side of the MAGA folks by siding against Jan. 6 defendants last June, when the high court struck down the Justice Department’s theory for using an obstruction statute against hundreds who took part in the riot. Even her concurrence in the Trump immunity case was seen as heresy.
Her latest supposed apostasy has now earned her withering and viciously personal criticism from the president’s allies. Mike Cernovich called her a “DEI hire.” Over on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, MAGA legal bulldog Mike Davis, a former law clerk to another Trump nominee, Justice Neil Gorsuch, called her “a rattled law professor with her head up her ass.” Laura Loomer, the far-right influencer, posted a photo of Barrett’s family, including two of her adopted children from Haiti.
“When judges take off their robes and climb into the political arena and throw political punches, they should expect political counterpunches,” Davis told Playbook.
But it wasn’t just a ruling that had MAGA adherents up in arms over Barrett this week.
It was a video reaction shared on X by Rogan O’Handley, the influencer known as DC_Draino who himself was just invited to the White House, of Barrett looking “very bitter” at Trump while he greeted people amid his trip to Capitol Hill this week.
For the MAGA right, the video seemed to evince a disloyalty Barrett harbors toward Trump.
“I think that she doesn’t owe any special loyalty to the president who appointed her, but she certainly shouldn’t show public disdain to any president, let alone the president who appointed her,” Davis told Playbook.
Disdain? Is that what Davis reads into the video of Barrett reacting to Trump during his joint reaction? “Yes,” Davis said, “and that’s why I’m unloading.”
The episode and what it says about this larger political moment is, at once, telling, remarkable and unsurprising.
Barrett came of age at a moment when the lodestar of conservatism was the cause of ending abortion; now the overriding organizing principle is MAGA loyalty. (Barrett did not respond to a request for comment that Playbook sent to the court’s public information officer.)
“It’s a sign of just how much the MAGA right measures officials in fealty rather than principle.” our senior legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney told us.
The anti-Barrett campaign also underscores the power Trump’s online base thinks it has to influence a co-equal branch of government, while revealing the limits it’s facing: “I think there’s frustration among the MAGA faithful about their inability to cow the courts the way they can often spook Congress,” Kyle added.
For what it’s worth, Davis doesn’t think the ref-working is hopeless: “It’s amazing: When you use fiery rhetoric and Republican-on-Republican rhetorical violence, you can get the mainstream media’s attention, which gets the Supreme Court justices’ attention,” said Davis, who added that Barrett “isn’t a liberal. She’s not the next [David] Souter.”
Where is all this headed? What does it mean if Trump gets another SCOTUS pick?
“In the current political climate, any perceived disloyalty on the part of a Supreme Court justice means the litmus tests and vetting — the ideological straitjacket, really — for the next nominee to fill a SCOTUS vacancy will be that much more intense,” Josh says.
Kyle points us to another thing to watch: talk among Trump allies about ignoring court orders. “Such talk has not been endorsed by the White House, but every time we see an adverse ruling, the drumbeat becomes a clamor,” Cheney said. “If we start seeing loud calls to ignore the Supreme Court itself, that’s when we’re really on the precipice of a crisis.”
Politico Email and the Left HATE the gov’t-limiting Constitution protecting individual freedom, and LOVE massive unconstitutional gov’t and coercion.
How I hate the Left.
Not so fast, Politico of USAID came
We’re in a battle for the country, which entails deception
She may turn out to be the notre dame leftist terrible mistake she seems to be but it’s early in the Trump regime
All I know is that ACB sure looks like a lib. She looks worn down so maybe she will throw un the towel during Trump or Vance. Trump better vet the Federalist Society next time around. They have been choosing /help choosing all Trumps court appointments.
The left is trying to alienate ACB from being an originalist and Constitutionalist. They are trying to recruit her.
She lied to get on the SC. She’s a leftist tool and as dumb as a fence post. Her virtue signaling UN adoption trophies should have been a dead giveaway.
More precisely, ACB has turned on those who put her on the SCOTUS...
A long tradition of every Republican woman who has been appointed...
No more...
THERE WAS NO RIOT ON 01/06 AT THE CAPITOL!
Bingo. DEI in action.
It was probably a bad ruling, but the government didn’t put on a good case. This was essentially a contract dispute. They claimed they were owed $2 billion for completed work. The government has a right to determine if the work was completed as contracted. It did not have to be a political issue but the Trump administration’s legal team made it one.
You expect her to change, admin to admin?!?
They give plenty of reasons to hate them.
They are nowadays a sick combination of communist/fascist/perverted sicko.
It’s an ugly thing
A lot of this seems to be driven by ignorance or just not having the intellect to understand some of the legal principles at play.
“..one who has rarely strayed from the conservative majority..”
An outright lie by Politico. She has more often sided with the leftists on the court than the conservatives. She is the female John Roberts. This last vote is just one in a long line of betraying Constitutionalists.
A long tradition of every Republican woman who has been appointed...
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I’ve cautioned conservatives for decades that behind those sweet smiles it is highly probable that what lurks there is a leftist political assassin dedicated to the advancement of all the usual Marxist political and social agendas.
“ You expect her to change, admin to admin?!?”
No she has been awful
Ah, so principle is it then, you say. Paragon of principle, do say: ours is fealty to the principle of thieving, come what may! Or is this fealty of yours to party, as long as it isn't that party? Don't cower and slip out the back, now. Stand, unfold yourself!
What is really needed, is a scoreboard or tally ,of every decision she’s ever made ,and how those decisions comport with conservatism.
I’ve looked online but haven’t been able to find any like that.
For that matter would be good to have a ranking of every single Supreme Court justice. We often hear that Thomas and Alito are the only reliable conservatives, while the other four nominated by Republican presidents have gone liberal on us. IT would be good to see that quantified somewhere.
“Her virtue signaling UN adoption trophies should have been a dead giveaway.”
That was a red flag for me from the get go.
“A long tradition of every Republican woman who has been appointed...”
There’s only been one other woman justice appointed by a republican - Sandra Day O’Connor - by Reagan. Cut from the same cloth.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.