President Donald Trump absolutely loves to brag about the two men he’s appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, calling them two of the greatest accomplishments of his presidency.
But based on a new book from Washington Post reporter Ruth Marcus, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh don’t exactly share the same adoration for the man who nominated them to be associate justices on the highest court in the land.
Reporting on the Marcus book, Supreme Ambition: Brett Kavanaugh and the Conservative Takeover, The Guardian notes:
In the run-up to election day 2016, Kavanaugh let it be known that “he thought Trump was a buffoon”, Marcus writes. As for Gorsuch, the first appointee, in a conversation with Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Trump nemesis, he termed the president’s derisive remarks about the judiciary in the aftermath of the travel ban rulings “demoralizing” and “disheartening.” Gratitude and subservience go only so far.
And it turns out that some of Trump’s top advisers thought he should dump Kavanaugh when allegations of sexual assault were leveled against him by Christine Blasey Ford:
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner “both told the president, ‘Get rid of Kavanaugh and start over’”, according to one White House adviser quoted by Marcus. Even Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society suffered from periodic bouts of pearl clutching.
Still on the subject of Kavanaugh, Marcus writes that despite fact Kavanaugh managed to win appointment by a narrow Senate margin, he will always be known as the justice with a black mark against his name:
Marcus contends that it “discredited the White House and Senate” and that Kavanaugh’s “tenure will forever have an asterisk attached – a blot on Kavanaugh and the court that is, to use Christine Blasey Ford’s phrase, indelible.”
Then again, the same could be said about Trump’s presidency, which came about at least partially thanks to the efforts of Russia and will forever have an asterisk attached to it, too.
Featured Image Via NBC News
