Conservatives are expressing doubts about President Trump’s ability to pick judges after Mr. Trump announced his first slate of appeals court nominees and then went on an epic social media rant about the Federalist Society, which furnished most of his first-term appointments.
Mr. Trump attacked Leonard Leo, a former executive vice president at the society, as a “sleazebag” and called the society’s recommendations for judgeships “bad advice.”
Mr. Trump launched his tirade a day after nominating Emil Bove, his former criminal defense attorney, to be a federal appeals court judge. Legal circles wondered whether Mr. Trump was signaling a new direction away from the “constitutionalist” picks of his first term and toward judges whose priority is Mr. Trump.
“I do think it seems like he’s going to try to appoint more loyalists to the court,” said Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University who is a Federalist Society regular and a frequent Trump critic. “In the second term, it is pretty obvious that what traditional conservative influence that might still be there is much weaker.”
The society is a coalition of generally right-leaning lawyers and academics that has come to be associated with conservative legal ideas such as originalism, though members have a wide range of views.
In 2021, a Harvard University professor calculated that 80% of Mr. Trump’s first-term court appointees were current or former Federalist Society members, as were all six current Republican appointees to the Supreme Court.
Mr. Trump blasted Mr. Leo after sustaining a legal loss in his push to impose global tariffs. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade said the president had gone beyond the powers the Constitution and Congress allowed him.
Mr. Trump suggested that the ruling was “purely a hatred of ‘TRUMP’” and faulted the Federalist Society for suggesting bad judges for him to appoint in his first term.
“I did so, openly and freely, but then realized that they were under the thumb of a real ‘sleazebag’ named Leonard Leo, a bad person who, in his own way, probably hates America, and obviously has his own separate ambitions,” Mr. Trump said on Truth Social.
“I am so disappointed in The Federalist Society because of the bad advice they gave me on numerous Judicial Nominations.”
It was a stunning reversal of Mr. Trump’s past acknowledgment of how much he owed Mr. Leo.
Mr. Leo did not respond directly to the president’s criticism but instead hailed the work he and Mr. Trump did together.
“I’m very grateful for President Trump transforming the federal courts, and it was a privilege being involved. There’s more work to be done, for sure, but the federal judiciary is better than it’s ever been in modern history, and that will be President Trump’s most important legacy,” Mr. Leo said.
During the 2016 campaign, a Federalist Society-backed list of potential Supreme Court justices helped Mr. Trump win over wary social conservative voters and squeak out a victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton that November. Mr. Trump promised that the society would also pick his lower court nominees
Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law and a frequent figure at Federalist Society events, said Mr. Trump’s actions signal “coming judicial nomination wars” among conservatives.
“In the past, the most vigorous clashes over judges happened between the left and the right. I think the next round of wars will be on the right. The left can sit back and enjoy the fireworks,” he wrote on the legal blog The Volokh Conspiracy.
Manuel Miranda, who as a senior Capitol Hill staffer helped confirm President George W. Bush’s court nominees, said the relationship between the Federalist Society and the first Trump term was cemented by figures such as Don McGahn and Pat Cipollone. The two White House counsels churned Federalist Society members into federal judges.
“Perhaps the White House is missing that kind of person” in his second term, Mr. Miranda said.
Mr. Miranda said he hopes Mr. Trump’s outburst against Mr. Leo is a blip and doesn’t mark a real break with the Federalist Society.
“This is just bloviating,” Mr. Miranda said. “There’s no other organization out there that can give them the same quality of judges on a regular basis.”
He said most of the decisions that riled Mr. Trump did not come from judges associated with the Federalist Society.
In his social media screed, Mr. Trump seems to have the basic facts wrong.
The tariffs ruling last week was by a three-judge panel, with Obama, Reagan and Trump appointees. The Trump appointee, Judge Timothy Reif, is not active in the Federalist Society, said Mr. Somin, who serves on two society committees and is the lead attorney in one of the tariff cases on which Judge Reif was ruling.
Mr. Somin said Judge Reif is a Democrat and came out of Mr. Trump’s operation. In the first Trump administration, he was a senior adviser to Robert Lighthizer, the president’s trade ambassador.
“He feels that his appointees, and conservative judges in general, should always vote for him no matter what, no matter how illegal the thing is that he’s doing,” Mr. Somin said.
It was not the first time Mr. Trump blamed Mr. Leo for something not of his making.
In 2020, Mr. Leo was dining with his wife at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s club in Florida, when Mr. Trump approached their table and unloaded on him. The New York Times reported that Mr. Trump was “berating him” for suggesting Rod Rosenstein as deputy attorney general. Mr. Rosenstein appointed special counsel Robert Mueller in 2017 to pursue the now-disproven “Russia collusion” allegations.
Mr. Leo pointed out to Mr. Trump that he had suggested someone else. The newspaper reported that the president walked away without apologizing.
Mr. Miranda said Mr. Trump’s frustration is understandable, given some of the rulings against him in lower courts. Trump opponents have been judicious in picking where they have sued. They have selected jurisdictions such as Maryland and Massachusetts, where Democratic appointees far outnumber Republican nominees and the Republican appointees often tilt to the left.
“There are lots of arguments to say that he has a very good point to make, but taking it out on the Federalist Society is a little ham-fisted,” Mr. Miranda said.
• Jeff Mordock contributed to this report.
