MAGA targets Coney Barrett after she rules against Trump

Kelly Rissman, The Independent

MAGA Republicans are taking aim at Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett after she ruled against President Donald Trump in a case concerning the administration's requirement to unfreeze federal funds. In a 5-4 decision on Wednesday, Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts joined liberal justices Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson to uphold a lower court ruling mandating the Trump administration to pay out nearly $2 billion in payments to U.S. Agency for International Development contractors.

When she was first nominated, conservative groups praised Trump's pick to replace the late liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Now, she's become persona non grata among Trump's allies, who have branded the former law professor and circuit judge as "evil" and a diversity, equity, and inclusion hire. The Independent has reached out to the Supreme Court for comment.

"She is evil, chosen solely because she checked identity politics boxes," conservative media personality Mike Cernovich posted on X. "Another DEI hire. It always ends badly." When confirmed, she became the fifth woman to ever serve on the bench.

Mike Davis, a former law clerk to fellow Trump nominee Justice Neil Gorsuch, told Steve Bannon's War Room show on Wednesday: "She's a rattled law professor with her head up her a**."

Rightwing internet personality Eric Daugherty also chimed in: "Democrats are loving Amy Coney Barrett lately. Tells you everything."

Conservative activist Kylie Jane Kremer remarked that she had shifted her opinion of the justice, writing on X: "I advocated hard for Amy Coney Barrett & was even at her official ceremony at the White House during COVID. I admit I was very wrong about her."

Others on social media called to impeach the Trump-appointed justice.

These calls come just over a week after Elon Musk, a senior adviser to the president, expressed his outrage at the Trump administration's three consecutive losses in courts nationwide by advocating for impeaching judges.

"The only way to restore rule of the people in America is to impeach judges. No one is above the law, including judges," Musk wrote on the platform he owns on February 27.

An hour after his first post, he tweeted: "If ANY judge ANYWHERE can block EVERY Presidential order EVERYWHERE, we do NOT have democracy, we have TYRANNY of the JUDICIARY."

Several House Republicans have even gone so far as to introduce resolutions to impeach three federal judges who have ruled against the Trump administration in recent weeks.

On Monday, the American Bar Association's president William R. Bay released a statement condemning the recent calls for impeachment and attacks against the judiciary.

"There have now been statements by officials criticizing judges for not following the will of the people. Judges swear oaths to follow the law, not public opinion polling or political chatter or what someone contends is the will of the people," Bay wrote.

"We may disagree with interpretation of case law, but it is unacceptable to personally target judges just because we disagree with their ruling. We cannot have a judicial system where the government seeks to remove judges simply because they do not rule as the government desires," he continued.

This isn't the first time in recent memory that Barrett has sided with the liberals on the bench.

Trump in January asked the Supreme Court to delay the sentencing in his hush money trial, in which a New York jury convicted him of 34 counts of falsifying business records. Barrett and Roberts ruled against the president.

During his first term, Bannon, Trump's White House chief strategist at the time, denounced the ruling and urged Barrett to leave the bench. "Barrett is a disgrace. A total disgrace," he told Newsweek.

The "honorable thing" for her to do would be to "step down, take another job and open that slot up for President Trump to...appoint a true MAGA judge to the Supreme Court," he added.