Justice Amy Coney Barrett has joined Chief Justice John Roberts as the “conservative” members of the Supreme Court most likely to side with its liberal wing.
The most recent example was this week when Roberts and Barrett joined with Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson to order the Trump administration to restore United States Agency for International Development funding “for work already completed.”
On Wednesday, the majority instructed the district court overseeing the case to “clarify what obligations the Government must fulfill to ensure compliance” with its temporary restraining order.
The next day, U.S. District Judge Amir Ali, a Biden appointee, directed some of the $2 billion in question to be released by Monday, according to The Hill.
Further, the judge said he would weigh a timeline for releasing the rest of the funds as he reviews the claims being brought, the news outlet said.
Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh, dissented from the majority ruling, arguing it gave far too much discretion to the lower court judge.
Alito pointed out that Roberts had initially issued a stay blocking the lower court’s ruling as SCOTUS reviewed the matter.
“Unfortunately, a majority has now undone that stay. As a result, the Government must apparently pay the $2 billion posthaste — not because the law requires it, but simply because a District Judge so ordered. As the Nation’s highest court, we have a duty to ensure that the power entrusted to federal judges by the Constitution is not abused. Today, the Court fails to carry out that responsibility,” Alito wrote.
“Today, the Court makes a most unfortunate misstep that rewards an act of judicial hubris and imposes a $2 billion penalty on American taxpayers. The District Court has made plain its frustration with the Government, and respondents raise serious concerns about nonpayment for completed work. But the relief ordered is, quite simply, too extreme a response. A federal court has many tools to address a party’s supposed nonfeasance,” he added.
Was putting Amy Coney Barrett on the SCOTUS bench a mistake?
Yes: 91% (995 Votes)
No: 9% (104 Votes)
So Alito argued for a case-by-case approach in righting individual wrongs for work completed instead of empowering the lower court judge to force the Trump administration pay out all the $2 billion. The federal government is currently running nearly a $2 trillion deficit, and Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency are working to whack that figure down so the country doesn’t go bankrupt.
Supreme Court watchers have become used to Roberts being the swing justice on the court, but the hope was that Barrett and the other four conservative justices would make his intermittent inclination to flip irrelevant.
Barrett’s increasing proclivity to join him in taking the liberal position is disappointing, particularly since Trump appointed her.
It should be noted that Barrett was a decisive vote in the Dobbs decision, overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022. Further, she also voted to end race-based admissions at colleges and universities in 2023 and to reverse the 1984 Chevron decision last year, which had given administrative agencies too much deference in writing and enforcing regulations.
These were all solid conservative, constitutionalist votes.
I can’t begin to understand supposed legal conservatives who give Justice Barrett zero credit for being the 5th vote to overturn Roe, for holding that racial preferences in college admissions violate the Equal Protection Clause and Title VI, for overturning Chevron, etc.
— Ed Whelan (@EdWhelanEPPC) March 5, 2025
That said, there seems to be a pattern emerging of Barrett voting specifically against Trump.
Here are some cases in point beyond this week’s USAID decision.
In January, Barrett joined Roberts and the liberal justices on the court in allowing the sentencing by New York Judge Juan Merchan in the bogus “hush money” case to proceed. Trump’s team had argued that there were many violations of his constitutional rights at trial, and the whole undertaking was politically motivated in the first place.
The other four conservative justices sided with Trump’s request to stay the sentencing.
Barrett also went along with the liberal justices in the presidential immunity decision last summer brought to the court by Trump. The majority, led by Roberts, concluded that presidents are presumed immune from prosecution for official acts taken in office.
Barrett wrote in her dissent, “The Constitution does not insulate Presidents from criminal liability for official acts. But any statute regulating the exercise of executive power is subject to a constitutional challenge.”
She concluded, “Thus, a President facing prosecution may challenge the constitutionality of a criminal statute as applied to official acts alleged in the indictment. If that challenge fails, however, he must stand trial.”
In other words, unless the law itself is constitutionally flawed as applied to the president, you can be prosecuted. The majority argued that the threat of criminal prosecution for official acts would greatly inhibit the president’s ability to do his job. Further, the immediate remedy under the Constitution for a president who engages in wrongdoing is impeachment and removal from office. He or she can then be prosecuted.
Barrett also joined the liberal justices last spring in the Fischer case regarding the prosecution of Jan. 6 defendants, including Trump. The majority found that a federal obstruction statute, which primarily involves the destruction of documents and other potential evidence, could not be applied to their case.
But Barrett contended in her dissent, “Statutes often go further than the problem that inspired them, and under the rules of statutory interpretation, we stick to the text anyway,” adding, “The Court, abandoning that approach, does textual backflips to find some way — any way — to narrow the reach of subsection (c)(2). I respectfully dissent.”
Finally, beyond the cases listed above, it should be noted that if looks could kill, the one Barrett gave Trump following his speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday would have done it. Yikes!
Justice Amy Coney Barrett couldn’t even hide her total contempt for Trump for 2 seconds pic.twitter.com/8eN8qrfFVv
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) March 5, 2025
Has Barrett gone full anti-Trump? Time will tell, but a pattern seems to be emerging that way.
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