With many of President Donald Trump’s executive actions tangled up in the courts, MAGA Republicans have grown angry with Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett for some of her recent rulings, accusing her of being insufficiently loyal to Trump.
After the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday to reject the Trump administration’s freeze on foreign funding, several prominent MAGA activists attacked Barrett, who, along with Chief Justice John Roberts, sided with the court’s liberal justices in the 5-4 decision.
Far-right activists Jack Posobiec, Laura Loomer and Mike Cernovich called Barrett, who was nominated by Trump to the court in 2020, a “DEI” hire, a term conservatives use pejoratively to suggest someone holds a position because of their identity rather than their qualifications. (Roberts, a white man, was notably spared from similar accusation.) Posobiec also posted on X a 2023 news report that Barrett had welcomed Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the court as some sort of “gotcha” against her.
Rogan O’Handley, another influential online MAGA figure, shared on X a clip of Barrett looking on as Trump shook Roberts’ hand at his joint address before Congress on Tuesday, claiming she looked “very bitter.”
Right-wing influencers’ anger at Barrett comes as Trump’s barrage of executive actions continues to run into legal and procedural obstacles in the courts. More of his orders are expected to be challenged all the way to the Supreme Court.
Barrett’s independence on the court has been a point of frustration for MAGA world. In January, her decision to join with Roberts and the liberal justices to block Trump’s request to delay his New York hush money sentencing also provoked the ire of Trump’s supporters.
Barrett was confirmed in 2020 with widespread support from conservatives, and she has consistently ruled alongside the court’s right-leaning bloc, including to overturn Roe v. Wade, to expand gun rights and to reverse affirmative action. But she has also at times diverged from the conservative majority, including on the topic of executive power. Of the conservative justices on the court, Barrett voted with her liberal colleagues the most in the latest term, just ahead of Justice Neil Gorsuch, another Trump nominee.