Veteran legal conservatives rush to Justice Barrett’s defense amid MAGA backlash

Prominent legal conservatives on Friday sought to tamp down a wave of sudden criticism directed at Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett over her vote to reject President Donald Trump’s attempt to freeze nearly $2 billion in foreign aid.

Prominent legal conservatives on Friday sought to tamp down a wave of sudden criticism directed at Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett over her vote to reject President Donald Trump’s attempt to freeze nearly $2 billion in foreign aid. Barrett, a former appeals court judge and law professor who Trump placed on the bench during his first term, joined Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s three liberals in upholding – for now – a lower court ruling that required the administration to quickly spend the contested aid. The backlash over that decision from some Trump allies was swift, with one prominent conservative describing Barrett on a podcast as a “rattled law professor with her head up her a**.” Others took to social media to describe her as a “DEI hire” and “evil.” Trump has scored many significant wins on a court that is the most conservative it has been in decades, with six of nine justices nominated by Republican presidents, including three Trump himself picked. But he’s also regularly lost, including with the first two emergency appeals to reach the high court in his second term. Several well-known conservatives who for years have sought to push the law to the right told CNN that the criticism was an overreaction to a relatively modest ruling that simply kept the fight over foreign aid percolating in lower federal courts. The majority did not indicate how it would vote in the likely event that the case makes it back to the Supreme Court – possibly in a few weeks. The reaction appeared to be at least partly a response to a sharply worded dissent from Justice Samuel Alito who accused a lower court that sided against Trump of “judicial hubris.” Three other conservatives – Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh – joined that opinion.