President Donald Trump invited three conservative Supreme Court justices to his state dinner hosting Chinese leader Xi Jinping, which prompted outcry.
On Thursday, multiple reporters pointed out that Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts were expected to attend the dinner. The New York Times reported the full guest list, which featured more than 130 guests and included Tech titans like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Sam Altman and Tim Cook.
"I guess Trump wasn't that p— about birthright citizenship or well this is an open bribe," reacted legal expert and journalist Marcy Wheeler, who runs the "emptywheel" podcast and blog. "You decide."
Wheeler was referring to Trump's anger at the court for voiding his executive order ending birthright citizenship. The state dinner also comes only ten days after Roberts, Barrett, and Kavanaugh sided with a majority that halted Trump's March executive order seeking to require the U.S. Postal Service to deliver ballots only to voters listed on new federally compiled "State Citizenship Lists."
Trump called the dissenting conservative justices that he appointed "shells" beholden to "crazed" liberal interests in a lengthy online post in which he mentioned the Supreme Court's Birthright Citizenship decision as well.
"Republicans are totally in bed [with] dictators, especially communist dictators," lamented journalist Daniel Morcate. "Publicly, however, they pretended to be anti-communist."
"Ouch. They couldn't get the marquis guests so they're reduced to the seat fillers of SCOTUS justices," jabbed professor and publisher Robert Rutledge. "Might as well be inviting Congressional staffers."
The state dinner doesn't mark the first time they've attended a Trump state dinner featuring a foreign leader. All six conservatives, including Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, showed up for an April state dinner hosting King Charles III.
However, Thomas and Alito were left off the guest list, even though Trump praised them in his post. The guest list also left off the three liberal justices.