ICYMI: As Trump Admin Seeks Approval for Far-Right Agenda, Recent Criticism of Samuel Alito and John Roberts Becomes All the More Important

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 13, 2025

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Roberts and Alito Frequently Side with Trump in Matters Involving Scope of President’s Executive Authority

Washington, DC — Over the past weeks, U.S. Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito were called out in several national media outlets for their embrace of President Donald Trump and his vision of total, consolidated power. As the Trump administration turns to the Court to rubberstamp their racist birthright citizenship order, with many more requests likely to come, these loyalist justices pose an even bigger threat to the promise of equal justice under the law. 

One legal expert even warned of the “ominous signs” coming out of the Roberts Court as the Trump administration attempts to “upend the division of power under the Constitution.”

See below for coverage of the current threat to our Constitution:

The Atlantic: Why Trump Thanked John Roberts

“We can’t know precisely what the president meant, but Trump does have a lot to thank Roberts for. After all, the chief justice and the other conservatives on the Supreme Court helped rewrite the Fourteenth Amendment, completely gutting the ban on insurrectionists holding office in order to allow Trump to run for president again following his attempt to seize power by force after the 2020 election. Then Roberts and the other conservative justices manifested an absurd, imperial grant of presidential immunity, with no textual basis in the Constitution, to shield Trump from criminal prosecution, and in so doing set the stage for a despotic second term during which Trump will try to ignore court efforts to impose limits on his power.

“Any casual observer of the Supreme Court can see what many prestigious constitutional lawyers can’t, which is that the conservative justices are frequently accomplices to Trump’s assault on democracy—a flag signaling support of the January 6 insurrection flew outside Justice Samuel Alito’s house. (Alito, vital specimen of right-wing masculine energy that he is, blamed his wife.)

“In his own way, the president agrees with the liberal critique that the Roberts Court is a partisan institution, with a majority that will generally do what he wants. He just believes that this is both good and exactly how it should be. Perhaps the only person who is still in the dark about what the Supreme Court has become is Roberts himself.”

Boston Globe: Alito decries judicial ‘hubris,’ then demonstrates it

“But a dissent, penned by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by three other members of the court’s conservative majority, not only laid bare the court’s unusual divide on the issue but also gave Alito a platform to vent about his views of judicial overreach — while engaging in some himself.

This order does not have the same precedential value as an opinion by the justices on the merits of a case. But it gives important support to the idea that there are, still, three separate and coequal branches of government. And a president alone cannot change that. And neither can Alito, his hubris notwithstanding.

The Atlantic: What Alito’s Dissent Fails to Understand

“The outcome of this arcane jurisdictional dispute may thus effectively determine whether Trump has the power to impound federal funds and dismantle federal agencies. If he does, expect him to exercise that power again. And again. And again.

“Right now, all we know for sure is that four conservative justices are okay with that outcome, whatever the damage to Congress’s power to control federal spending.”

Mother Jones: The Supreme Court Is Just One Vote Shy of Making Trump and Musk Kings

“The bad news is that four justices think Trump and Musk should be able to unilaterally turn off congressionally-mandated spending, including for work already done. Justice Samuel Alito, in a dissent, argued that not only can the government simply refuse to pay its bills, but that those who have been stiffed cannot sue for payment. ‘I am stunned,’ he wrote, that the majority didn’t agree with him.

“Rather than defend the role of the judiciary and of federal judges under such assault, Alito’s dissent piles on. ‘Does a single district-court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the Government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever) 2 billion taxpayer dollars?’ Alito begins his dissent by asking. Note that it is not the lawlessness of Musk canceling $2 billion in congressionally-appropriated funds that is an affront, but the fact that a judge dared to stand up for Congress’ spending power.”

RawStory: “Ominous signs’: Legal expert says John Roberts showed he’ll ‘reverse precedent’ for Trump

“U.S. Supreme Court Justice Judge John G. Roberts Jr. hinted that he will reverse a key high court precedent for Donald Trump, an ex-prosecutor said.

“‘The Trump administration is in the process of trying to upend the division of power under the Constitution. It is trying to assume congressional power for the executive branch and undercut the legitimacy of the judiciary while exposing individual judges to threats,’ Vance added.

“Vance then said, ‘The open question is whether the Supreme Court will reverse its own precedent and sign on to Trump’s view,’ before asking, ‘What will the Supreme Court do?’

“Vance then points to ‘ominous signs’ that purportedly ‘came from the notorious ruling last summer granting ex-presidents wide immunity from accountability to criminal law.’

“‘That case did not rely on the unitary executive theory, but Chief Justice John Roberts could not help but sing the tune. The president is ‘the only person who alone composes a branch of government,’ he wrote,’ according to Vance’s essay.

“She adds, ‘The question is whether precedent will trump politics, or whether a conservative majority on the Supreme Court will continue to turn over the keys to the kingdom to the president.’”

In addition to his long history of deference to Trump, Alito has a long list of conflicts of interests when it comes to the President, the Republican Party, and its financial backers:

• Alito and his wife, on multiple occasions, have flown flags associated with the January 6 storming of the Capitol outside of their home.

• Alito previously took an all-expenses-paid trip to Alaska with Paul Singer, a billionaire fossil fuel investor and major GOP donor. In the years since, Alito has refused to recuse himself from cases before the Court involving Singer.

• Earlier this year, Trump called Alito just one day before Trump filed an emergency appeal with the Court seeking to delay his sentencing in his New York hush money case. In the call, Alito asked Trump to hire a former law clerk of his. The Court later allowed Trump’s sentencing to go forward, but Alito dissented.

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