NEW: The fact @realDonaldTrump thinks his conservative judicial appointees will save him shows he doesn’t have a clue who they are or what they believe about the law, say former White House counsel officials and legal experts. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-lawsuits-election-supreme-court-gorsuch-b1770104.html
“That’s the opposite of what conservative justices are — that’s activist as fuck… wading into the three branches of government,” said one former White House counsel’s office attorney. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-lawsuits-election-supreme-court-gorsuch-b1770104.html
The former official, a veteran GOP lawyer, said @realDonaldTrump “continues to believe...because he was the one who nominated them and put them on the various levels of the federal court system, that they'll be more inclined to hear his side of the case.” https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-lawsuits-election-supreme-court-gorsuch-b1770104.html
But Fordham Law School professor @jedshug said Trump’s faith in his appointees is misplaced: “His whole life has been transactions...and that’s a total misunderstanding of what to expect from the three justices he appointed.” https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-lawsuits-election-supreme-court-gorsuch-b1770104.html
“They're not going to burn down their court to rescue Donald Trump… they're neither stupid nor crazy. And for them to do what Trump's asking them to do, they would have to be both stupid and crazy,” @jedshug said of the conservative SCOTUS majority. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-lawsuits-election-supreme-court-gorsuch-b1770104.html
And Harvard emeritus professor @tribelaw said he “wasn’t surprised that @realDonaldTrump has no idea what real judges do or how they at least try, if they have any integrity at all, to apply the law as they understand it to the facts in actual cases.” https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-lawsuits-election-supreme-court-gorsuch-b1770104.html
But @tribelaw added that what surprises and distresses him “is that so many people loyal to Trump do seem to have been surprised and are ready to badmouth, or even threaten, judges who don’t conform to Trump’s misconception of the judicial role.” https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-lawsuits-election-supreme-court-gorsuch-b1770104.html
“This seems like an integral part of the Trump-captured Republican Party’s rejection of the rule of law itself as a meaningful part of democracy and, sadly, an integral part of their rejection of the democratic idea altogether,” @tribelaw said. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-lawsuits-election-supreme-court-gorsuch-b1770104.html