Trump set off 'huge' war in GOP with public attack on former ally: legal analyst

A war is coming to the Republican Party and it's going to be "huge," "The Nation's" legal analyst, Elie Mystal, wrote in a Tuesday column.

For decades, the Federalist Society, a conservative legal organization, has been involved in vetting judicial appointments for Republican presidents. Now, President Donald Trump is breaking up with the group.

"I am so disappointed in the Federalist Society because of the bad advice they gave me on numerous Judicial Nominations," Trump wrote on Truth Social. He alleged that he trusted the group because he was "new to Washington" after winning in 2016. "It was suggested that I use The Federalist Society as a recommending source on Judges," he wrote.

Some of those judicial appointments have ruled against the Trump administration.

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Trump also attacked the group's board chair, Leonard Leo, as a "sleazebag."

The attack on Leo was "glorious" to Mystal, he confessed in the column.

"The fight between the president and the conservative old guard might just be the biggest legal development of Trump’s second term," he wrote.

"As a reminder, Leo and the Federalist Society (which Leo functionally ran until 2023, when 91-year-old industrialist Barre Seid gave him $1.6 billion to do whatever he wants) have controlled judicial nominations by Republican presidents since at least 2005," Mystal said, explaining the history.

"That’s when the Federalist Society led an uprising against George W. Bush’s second Supreme Court nominee, Harriet Miers, scuttling her confirmation and getting Bush to appoint Samuel Alito instead.

Former White House counsel Don McGahn, who Mystal noted was a Leo "acolyte," was behind all of the judicial appointments, including Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

He also accused Leo of being behind "everything awful" that has happened in the courts over the past 20 years, including the destruction of voting rights and reproductive freedom.

Trump's recent appointment of his personal lawyer Emil Bove, to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals is a "slap in the face to Trump's FedSoc handlers," wrote Mystal. Though a Republican congressional candidate suggested Trump has been annoyed with the group for some time.

Mystal closed by saying that Trump and Article III Project founder Mike Davis will likely take over the judicial picks.

"The best hope here is that Trump, Davis, and whoever else is involved going forward make picks so despicable and unqualified that even Republican Senators get spooked. Either that, or Trump will start auctioning off judicial appointments like he does ambassadorships," he said.

Mystal is gleefully monitoring the schadenfreude.

Read the full column here.