For conservatives, Trump sends worrying signals on court picks

Conservatives are expressing new doubts about President Trump and his judge-picking abilities in his new term after Mr. Trump announced his first slate of appeals court picks and then went on an epic social media rant about the Federalist Society, which furnished most of his first-term appointments.

Mr. Trump attacked Leonard Leo, who used to helm the society as its executive vice president, as a “sleazebag” and called the society’s recommendations for judgeships — which by one account came to 80% of his first-term picks — “bad advice.”

The fact that the tirade came one day after Mr. Trump nominated Emil Bove, his former criminal defense lawyer, to be a federal appeals court judge set legal circles wondering whether Mr. Trump was signaling a new direction for his second term, leaning away from the “constitutionalist” picks of his last go-around and toward judges whose priority is Mr. Trump.

“I do think it seems like he’s going to try to appoint more loyalists to the court,” said Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University who is both a Federalist Society regular and a frequent Trump critic. “In the second term, it is pretty obvious that what traditional conservative influence that might still be there is much weaker.”

The society is a coalition of generally right-leaning lawyers and academics that has come to be associated with conservative legal ideas such as originalism, though there is a massive range of views among members.

A Harvard University professor in 2021 calculated that 80% of Mr. Trump’s first-term court appointees were current or former Federalist Society members, as were all six current Republican appointees to the Supreme Court.

Mr. Trump’s blast at Mr. Leo came after the president suffered a legal loss in his push to impose global tariffs. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade said he had gone beyond the powers allowed him by the Constitution and Congress.

Mr. Trump suggested the ruling was “purely a hatred of ’TRUMP’” and blamed the Federalist Society for suggesting bad judges for him to name in his first term.

“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,” Mr. Trump said on Truth Social.

“I am so disappointed in The Federalist Society because of the bad advice they gave me on numerous Judicial Nominations.”

The blast against Mr. Leo is stunning given how much Mr. Trump owes him — something Mr. Trump himself has acknowledged in the past.

Mr. Leo did not respond directly to the president’s criticism but instead hailed the work he and Mr. Trump did together.

“I’m very grateful for President Trump transforming the federal courts, and it was a privilege being involved. There’s more work to be done, for sure, but the federal judiciary is better than it’s ever been in modern history, and that will be President Trump’s most important legacy,” Mr. Leo said.

During the 2016 campaign, it was a Federalist Society-backed list of potential Supreme Court justices that helped Mr. Trump win over wary social conservative voters and squeak out a victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton that November. Mr. Trump promised that the society would pick his lower court nominees, too.

Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law and a frequent figure at Federalist Society events, said Mr. Trump’s recent actions signal “coming judicial nomination wars” among conservatives.

“In the past, the most vigorous clashes over judges happened between the left and the right. I think the next round of wars will be on the right. The left can sit back and enjoy the fireworks,” he wrote on the legal blog Volokh Conspiracy.

Manuel Miranda, who as a senior Capitol Hill staffer helped confirm President George W. Bush’s court picks, said the relationship between the Federalist Society and the first Trump term was cemented by figures such as Don McGahn and Pat Cipollone, two White House counsels who churned Federalist Society members into federal judges.

In this second term, he said that “perhaps the White House is missing that kind of person.”

Mr. Miranda said he hopes Mr. Trump’s outburst against Mr. Leo is a blip and doesn’t mark a real break with the Federalist Society.

“This is just bloviating,” Mr. Miranda said. “There’s no other organization out there that can give them the same quality of judges on a regular basis.”

He also said most of the decisions Mr. Trump has complained about have not come from judges associated with the Federalist Society.

That’s particularly true for last week’s tariffs ruling, where Mr. Trump, in his social media screed, seems to have the basic facts wrong.

The ruling was by a three-judge panel, with Obama, Reagan and Trump picks. The Trump pick, Judge Timothy Reif, is not a Federalist Society guy, according to Mr. Somin, who serves on two society committees. He’s also the lead attorney in one of the tariff cases Judge Reif was ruling on.

Mr. Somin said Judge Reif is actually a Democrat and came out of Mr. Trump’s operation. He was a senior adviser to Robert Lighthizer, the president’s trade ambassador, in the first Trump administration.

“He feels that his appointees, and conservative judges in general, should always vote for him no matter what, no matter how illegal the thing is that he’s doing,” Mr. Somin said.

It’s not the first time Mr. Trump has blamed Mr. Leo for something not of his making.

In 2020, Mr. Leo was dining with his wife at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s club in Florida, when Mr. Trump approached their table and unloaded on him, according to The New York Times, “berating him” for having suggested Rod Rosenstein as deputy attorney general. Mr. Rosenstein is the man who in 2017 appointed special counsel Robert Mueller to pursue the now-disproved “Russia collusion” allegations.

Mr. Leo pointed out to Mr. Trump that he had suggested someone else. The president walked away without apologizing, the newspaper reported.

Mr. Miranda said Mr. Trump’s frustration is understandable, given some of the rulings against him in lower courts. Trump opponents have been judicious in picking where they’ve sued, selecting places such as Maryland and Massachusetts where Democratic appointees far outnumber GOP nominees — and the GOP picks that are there often tilt to the left.

“There are lots of arguments to say that he has a very good point to make, but taking it out on the Federalist Society is a little ham-fisted,” Mr. Miranda said.

• Jeff Mordock contributed to this report.