“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.“
That’s Donald Trump in a Truth Social post last night, bemoaning how he was just a trusting neophyte ensnared in the machinations of the Federalist Society and Leonard Leo. But no more! It’s apparently time to Make American Hate FedSoc Again, as Trump explains “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!”
Never forget, indeed.
Ostensibly, the spark for this unhinged evening rant and sudden animosity at Leo’s expense is the U.S. Court of International Trade ruling striking down Trump’s authority to arbitrarily level tariffs. But only one of the judges on the panel, Timothy Reif, was a Trump appointee so it’s not clear how this decision could be the Federalist Society’s fault. The other judges on the panel were an Obama appointee and a Reagan appointee installed the year after the Federalist Society was founded as little more than a clubhouse for William F. Buckley fanboys.
Which is why it’s a mistake to take this diatribe at face value. The tariff decision clearly rankles Trump, but “if it’s hysterical, it’s historical” as they say, and the roots of this outburst run deeper than this week’s decision. Two weeks ago, when rumors first surfaced that the White House would nominate Emil Bove for a Third Circuit vacancy — not the sort of well-heeled FedSoc product we would expect — I wrote:
Maybe this is a one-off from the Federalist Society’s continued dominance of the nomination process. But there is a tipping point out there where Trump stops caring about the carefully manicured resumes he gets from the movement and starts just starts handing jobs to people who work themselves into his good graces. If we reach that point, we’re going to look back on this one as an early indicator of where things were going.
Just yesterday, hours before this break, I wrote of the decision to axe the ABA as the neutral evaluator of judicial nominations, “Frankly, it’s not even clear we can trust the Federalist Society to have vetted these people at this point.” While everyone, fairly, focused on the ABA’s exile, it felt like one piece of a larger project to jettison all flavors of outside influence over Trump’s judiciary. When norms get tossed aside like that, it rarely stops at the top level.
The Federalist Society gave Trump Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, James Ho and Aileen Cannon — loyal soldiers up and down the judiciary vetted and endorsed by Leo and his network. FedSoc built a Supreme Court willing to endorse the proposition that Trump could order SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival! There’s a reason why he tells the Federalist Society-approved John Roberts “Thank you again. Thank you again. Won’t forget it” as though Supreme Court rulings are personal favors.
That said, the phrase “Trump appointee” and “strikes down” comes up far too often for the White House. Right-wing social media started openly attacking the uber conservative Amy Coney Barrett over a handful of deviations from White House marching orders. That’s what Trump hears in the echo chamber he lives in. Loyalty to the conservative legal movement may once have been enough, but even if it aligns with the MAGA movement 99.999 percent of the time, loyalty to anything other than TRUMP is inherently suspect.
Though the line from the post that carries the most heft in deciphering Trump’s decision might be “He openly brags how he controls Judges, and even Justices of the United States Supreme Court.” Two things Trump can’t let stand: the thought that someone else has more control than he does and, by extension, the idea that his courthouse losses are the fault of someone who’s failing to control the situation to his liking.
Whether it was Todd Blanche or some other Federalist Society all star within the White House, this is the call they made to Leo last night around 7:30…
This image is particularly poignant. It’s a happy coincidence that the referenced character’s name is a variant of Leo. I guess this is a super mild spoiler for Andor, but honestly it’s been almost 50 years since the first Star Wars movie, so you can’t really be spoiled on the broad strokes of what happens. The Empire is at its zenith. The Death Star is days away from completion, the Senate is about to be disbanded, and the Rebels are in disarray. Yet by the end of the week, the Empire’s most loyal enablers will come to tragic end, victims of backstabbing and recriminations.
Replace force choking with allcaps Truth Social posts and it’s the same thing.
Authoritarianism turns on its own because there’s never enough loyalty. Nikolai Yezhov did everything the regime asked and still became the world’s most famous reverse-photo bomb. Lafayette spent five years in prison. They tried to hang Mike Pence. Now it’s Leo’s turn. Borrowing from Star Wars again, “the need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural.” The reward for dutifully helping an authoritarian fanatic to the top is finding out that you’re getting too much credit for his rise.
This was the only way this relationship could end. Whether today or six months from now, eventually Leo’s decision to step out of the shadows and embrace a reputation as conservative puppet master would end in him getting publicly burned by Trump. Something resembling the Federalist Society will inevitably rise from the ashes to eat Chick-fil-A and joke about immigrants eating dogs.
That sound you hear is hundreds of former conservative clerks furiously updating their resumes to scrub any mention of the Federalist Society. The post-FedSoc moment has arrived.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
The post Donald Trump Rips Federalist Society, Calls Leonard Leo A ‘Sleazebag’ appeared first on Above the Law.
“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.“
That’s Donald Trump in a Truth Social post last night, bemoaning how he was just a trusting neophyte ensnared in the machinations of the Federalist Society and Leonard Leo. But no more! It’s apparently time to Make American Hate FedSoc Again, as Trump explains “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!”
Never forget, indeed.
Ostensibly, the spark for this unhinged evening rant and sudden animosity at Leo’s expense is the U.S. Court of International Trade ruling striking down Trump’s authority to arbitrarily level tariffs. But only one of the judges on the panel, Timothy Reif, was a Trump appointee so it’s not clear how this decision could be the Federalist Society’s fault. The other judges on the panel were an Obama appointee and a Reagan appointee installed the year after the Federalist Society was founded as little more than a clubhouse for William F. Buckley fanboys.
Which is why it’s a mistake to take this diatribe at face value. The tariff decision clearly rankles Trump, but “if it’s hysterical, it’s historical” as they say, and the roots of this outburst run deeper than this week’s decision. Two weeks ago, when rumors first surfaced that the White House would nominate Emil Bove for a Third Circuit vacancy — not the sort of well-heeled FedSoc product we would expect — I wrote:
Maybe this is a one-off from the Federalist Society’s continued dominance of the nomination process. But there is a tipping point out there where Trump stops caring about the carefully manicured resumes he gets from the movement and starts just starts handing jobs to people who work themselves into his good graces. If we reach that point, we’re going to look back on this one as an early indicator of where things were going.
Just yesterday, hours before this break, I wrote of the decision to axe the ABA as the neutral evaluator of judicial nominations, “Frankly, it’s not even clear we can trust the Federalist Society to have vetted these people at this point.” While everyone, fairly, focused on the ABA’s exile, it felt like one piece of a larger project to jettison all flavors of outside influence over Trump’s judiciary. When norms get tossed aside like that, it rarely stops at the top level.
The Federalist Society gave Trump Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, James Ho and Aileen Cannon — loyal soldiers up and down the judiciary vetted and endorsed by Leo and his network. FedSoc built a Supreme Court willing to endorse the proposition that Trump could order SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival! There’s a reason why he tells the Federalist Society-approved John Roberts “Thank you again. Thank you again. Won’t forget it” as though Supreme Court rulings are personal favors.
That said, the phrase “Trump appointee” and “strikes down” comes up far too often for the White House. Right-wing social media started openly attacking the uber conservative Amy Coney Barrett over a handful of deviations from White House marching orders. That’s what Trump hears in the echo chamber he lives in. Loyalty to the conservative legal movement may once have been enough, but even if it aligns with the MAGA movement 99.999 percent of the time, loyalty to anything other than TRUMP is inherently suspect.
Though the line from the post that carries the most heft in deciphering Trump’s decision might be “He openly brags how he controls Judges, and even Justices of the United States Supreme Court.” Two things Trump can’t let stand: the thought that someone else has more control than he does and, by extension, the idea that his courthouse losses are the fault of someone who’s failing to control the situation to his liking.
Whether it was Todd Blanche or some other Federalist Society all star within the White House, this is the call they made to Leo last night around 7:30…
This image is particularly poignant. It’s a happy coincidence that the referenced character’s name is a variant of Leo. I guess this is a super mild spoiler for Andor, but honestly it’s been almost 50 years since the first Star Wars movie, so you can’t really be spoiled on the broad strokes of what happens. The Empire is at its zenith. The Death Star is days away from completion, the Senate is about to be disbanded, and the Rebels are in disarray. Yet by the end of the week, the Empire’s most loyal enablers will come to tragic end, victims of backstabbing and recriminations.
Replace force choking with allcaps Truth Social posts and it’s the same thing.
Authoritarianism turns on its own because there’s never enough loyalty. Nikolai Yezhov did everything the regime asked and still became the world’s most famous reverse-photo bomb. Lafayette spent five years in prison. They tried to hang Mike Pence. Now it’s Leo’s turn. Borrowing from Star Wars again, “the need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural.” The reward for dutifully helping an authoritarian fanatic to the top is finding out that you’re getting too much credit for his rise.
This was the only way this relationship could end. Whether today or six months from now, eventually Leo’s decision to step out of the shadows and embrace a reputation as conservative puppet master would end in him getting publicly burned by Trump. Something resembling the Federalist Society will inevitably rise from the ashes to eat Chick-fil-A and joke about immigrants eating dogs.
That sound you hear is hundreds of former conservative clerks furiously updating their resumes to scrub any mention of the Federalist Society. The post-FedSoc moment has arrived.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
The post Donald Trump Rips Federalist Society, Calls Leonard Leo A ‘Sleazebag’ appeared first on Above the Law.
