Trump slams Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society
Fractures in the right-wing legal movement and the fight for our constitutional future.
By Alex Aronson
Thursday night, in response to a ruling by a three-judge panel of the Court of International Trade—since stayed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit—blocking the Trump administration’s sweeping tariffs program, President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to post a tirade against Leonard Leo, the dark-money impresario who shaped Trump’s first-term judicial appointments. In his post, Trump called Leo a “sleazebag” and a “bad person” who “probably hates America,” noting that Leo “openly brags how he controls Judges, and even Justices of the Supreme Court.” Trump further expressed that he was “so disappointed in The Federalist Society because of the bad advice they gave [him] on numerous Judicial Nominations.” Judge Timothy Reif, one of Trump’s first-term judicial picks likely influenced by Leo, was on the unanimous panel that blocked the tariffs.
Given Trump’s penchant for turning on his allies, it is perhaps unsurprising to see him attacking his former judicial kingmaker. The feud comes amid an intense constitutional clash between Trump’s administration and a judicial branch struggling to reckon with the president’s unprecedented assault on the rule of law. Trump’s attacks on Leo were also made in the shadow of other fights brewing inside the right-wing legal movement, including over Trump’s nomination of his former defense lawyer Emil Bove to the Third Circuit. Writing in the National Review about rumors of Bove’s selection, staunch right-wing lawyer (and close Leo ally) Ed Whelan described Bove as Trump’s “henchman,” decrying the potential nomination as “disturbing news.” In response, Mike Davis, an influential MAGA operative and frequent guest on Steve Bannon’s “War Room,” called Whelan an “establishment stooge” in a statement supporting Bove’s nomination.
Nonetheless, the MAGA-Project 2025 agenda and Leo’s judicial designs remain broadly aligned. Just 11 days ago, for instance, the Roberts court, acting on its emergency (“shadow”) docket, issued an unsigned order paving the way for Trump to fire two independent agency commissioners without cause, thereby handing Trump yet more executive power. The opinion essentially announced the court’s intention to gut Congress’s power to establish independent, bipartisan agencies, delivering a longtime priority of Leo and the Federalist Society. And second-term Trump appointees across the board—including Food and Drug Administration chief Marty Makary, Health and Human Services head Robert F. Kennedy Jr., HHS Inspector General nominee Thomas March Bell, and judicial nominees Joshua Divine and Maria Lanahan—are eagerly continuing the theocratic assault on access to reproductive healthcare that Leo and his first-term judicial picks have championed for decades.
Trump’s MAGA movement and Leo’s right-wing legal apparatus have been more than happy to use one another to advance the overlapping aspects of their agendas. But Trump’s broadside against Leo exposes a critical fracture between Leo’s corporatist agenda and Trump’s America First isolationism. The Supreme Court justices Leo placed on the bench are eager to stifle democratic participation and expand Trump’s executive power—just not if it threatens corporate America’s ability to turn a profit, as they proved in their Humphrey’s decision by carving out an arbitrary exception limiting Trump’s power over the Federal Reserve. As his outburst amply demonstrates, Trump simply envisions “his judges” as an arm of his personal gangster state, wherein only total fealty is acceptable.
For those of us who have been sounding the alarm for years about the threat to our constitutional order posed by Leonard Leo’s weaponization of the judicial power, it’s hard not to savor the schadenfreude as the arsonist coughs on his own smoke. But the blaze Leo set is still spreading, and unless the people mobilize to reclaim our constitutional house, we’ll all be left in ashes.
Alex Aronson is co-founder and executive director of Court Accountability.
Leonard Leo is a small religious fanatic who ties to the Russia Orthodox Church. Money is being funneled into his 42 shell companies from all over the world. Those companies are all under 501 (3) (c) which gives tax exemptions for churches. One of those “religious” companies is owned by none other than Ginni Thomas!! Leo, Kevin Roberts, Russsell Vought, the Koch’s, the Mercers, etc. are the contributors to Project 2025. Don’t think that Alito and Thomas didn’t know about it. They most certainly did as both have been treated to expensive trips, meals and favors by these monsters.
Calling Leonard Leo a “sleazebag” is rich coming from FF47. It takes one to know one.