Trump is as disappointed in his Justices as he is in his Generals:
Former President Donald Trump, in a book out Tuesday by Michael Wolff, says he is “very disappointed” in votes by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, his own hard-won nominee, and that he “hasn’t had the courage you need to be a great justice.”
Driving the news: “There were so many others I could have appointed, and everyone wanted me to,” Trump told Wolff in an interview for the cheekily titled “Landslide.”
“Where would he be without me? I saved his life. He wouldn’t even be in a law firm. Who would have had him? Nobody. Totally disgraced. Only I saved him.”
Between the lines: After the election, as Axios’ Jonathan Swan reported in his “Off the Rails” series, Trump saved his worst venom for people who he believed owed him because he got them their jobs.
He would rant endlessly about the treachery of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, reminding people of how he shot up in the primary polls after Trump endorsed him.
Over lunches in the private dining room adjoining the Oval Office, Trump used to reminisce about how he saved Kavanaugh by sticking by him.
For Kavanaugh to not do Trump’s bidding on the matter of ultimate importance — overturning the election — was, in Trump’s mind, a betrayal of the highest order.
Wolff writes that Trump feels betrayed by all three justices he put on the court, including Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, but “reserved particular bile for Kavanaugh.”
Recalling the brutal confirmation fight, Trump said: “Practically every senator called me … and said, ‘Cut him loose, sir, cut him loose. He’s killing us, Kavanaugh.’ … I said, ‘I can’t do that.'”
“I had plenty of time to pick somebody else,” Trump continued. “I went through that thing and fought like hell for Kavanaugh — and I saved his life, and I saved his career. At great expense to myself … okay? I fought for that guy and kept him.”
“I don’t want anything … but I am very disappointed in him, in his rulings,” Trump said.
“I can’t even believe what’s happening. I’m very disappointed in Kavanaugh. I just told you something I haven’t told a lot of people. In retrospect, he just hasn’t had the courage you need to be a great justice. I’m basing this on more than just the election.”
He was very clear before the election that he expected “his” court to subvert the constitution and do what he wanted them to do. That’s how it worked in the Trump administration, right? Just ask Allen Weisselberg:
What the Trump Judges and Mitch McConnell and Leonard Leo and Don McGahn always knew was that Trump was the means, not the end, for the conservative legal movement; and the Judiciary, not Trumpism, best secures the conservative political movement's the survival and success.
IOW
Of course state GOP lawmakers and many Republican voters think differently, and just because SCOTUS didn't flip the election for Trump in 2020 doesn't mean they will lift a finger come to 2024 to stop an antidemocratic-but-legal coup
Originally tweeted by Mike Sacks (@MikeSacksEsq) on July 13, 2021.
Of course they won’t lift a finger. They will help.