{"id":1391370,"date":"2022-03-21T05:32:10","date_gmt":"2022-03-21T09:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1391370"},"modified":"2022-03-21T09:45:19","modified_gmt":"2022-03-21T13:45:19","slug":"smear-campaign-leftist-activists-seek-to-intimidate-justices-control-the-court-experts-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/smear-campaign-leftist-activists-seek-to-intimidate-justices-control-the-court-experts-say\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Smear Campaign\u2019: Leftist Activists Seek To Intimidate Justices, Control The Court, Experts Say"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsmear-campaign-leftist-activists-seek-to-intimidate-justices-control-the-court-experts-say%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1391370&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2022\/03\/Screen-Shot-2022-03-19-at-5.29.21-PM.png?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.3.0\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>WASHINGTON \u2014 On a warm September 2021 evening, a quiet, wealthy, Chevy Chase neighborhood erupted with chants of activists marching, singing, and yelling.<\/p>\n<p>Mere days before the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg would pass away, protestors\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/09\/13\/abortion-protest-kavanaugh-home-maryland-activists\/\">gathered<\/a> around Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh\u2019s suburban home. The justice and his family appeared to be absent, though police stood about the street and around the home.<\/p>\n<p>Led by activists from ShutDownDC, the\u00a0protestors demanded that Kavanaugh \u201cresign now,\u201d condemned the justice\u2019s decision to dismiss a challenge to Texas\u2019 heartbeat law,\u00a0and repeatedly expressed fears that <em>Roe v. Wade<\/em> would be overturned.<\/p>\n<p>This incident is just one of many reflecting tactics by leftist groups, activists, and lawmakers to intimidate, threaten, and smear the reputations of Supreme Court justices, experts told The Daily Wire \u2014 and even bully their own liberal justices to retire.<\/p>\n<p>The decades-long campaign to control the court has heightened in recent months as Democrats and leftist activists observe Justice Clarence Thomas\u2019s influence growing and realize they have \u201clost their stronghold on the court,\u201d Judicial Crisis Network President Carrie Severino said in a phone interview.<\/p>\n<p>The left has long taken the court for granted, Severino said, believing the Supreme Court was \u201ctheir ace in the hole for getting policies achieved that they couldn\u2019t do through the elected branches.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Now that this is not the case, Democrats and leftist activists widely <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/supreme-court\/democrats-introduce-bill-expand-supreme-court-9-13-justices-n1264132\">advocate<\/a> for expanding the court. And they subject both conservative Supreme Court nominees and justices to character assassinations, threats of retaliation, attacks on their legitimacy, and more.<\/p>\n<p>During her confirmation hearings, media, Democrats, and activists\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2020\/09\/26\/amy-coney-barrett-supreme-court-attacks-democrats-media\/\">portrayed<\/a> Justice Amy Coney Barrett as an \u201cextremist\u201d Catholic radical determined to overturn <em>Roe v. Wade<\/em> and take a knife to the Affordable Care Act, even suggesting that Barrett adopted her children for nefarious reasons.<\/p>\n<p>Barrett\u2019s Catholicism made her unfit to serve as a judge, Democrats and activist suggested, and media disingenuously <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2020\/09\/22\/media-catholic-people-of-praise-amy-coney-barrett-handmaids-tale\/\">highlighted<\/a> Barrett\u2019s reported connections to the Catholic group People of Praise, <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2020\/09\/23\/reuters-amy-coney-barrett-handmaids-tale-people-of-praise\/\">falsely reporting<\/a> that the group was the inspiration for Margaret Atwood\u2019s \u201cThe Handmaid\u2019s Tale.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The attacks on Barrett might be considered nothing when compared to the campaign against Kavanaugh orchestrated by <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2020\/04\/14\/brett-kavanaugh-joe-biden-tara-reade-christine-blasey-ford-womens-groups-silent\/\">abortion rights groups<\/a> and propelled by statements and condemnations from Democrats like Vice President Kamala Harris (a senator at the time) and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker.<\/p>\n<p>Kavanaugh was accused of sexually assaulting multiple women, including Christine Blasey Ford, whose attorney\u00a0Debra Katz later admitted that putting \u201can asterisk next to\u201d Kavanaugh\u2019s name before \u201che takes a scalpel\u201d to <em>Roe v. Wade<\/em> was \u201cpart of what motivated\u201d Ford to speak out.<\/p>\n<p>Though the Senate Judiciary Committee found no evidence corroborating the allegations against Kavanaugh, his critics continued to portray him as a predator.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court one year ago today\u2014and his seat on the Court remains a national travesty. Read my op-ed on why I\u2019ve called for an impeachment inquiry into Kavanaugh. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/bfRDn3prgI\">https:\/\/t.co\/bfRDn3prgI<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/VP\/status\/1180871987645820932?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 6, 2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201cThe fact that we actually have conservative, originalist majority in the court is making the left crazy,\u201d Severino said.\u00a0\u201cThat is really what\u2019s making them so outraged and is driving some of these new lows in our politics surrounding the courts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In March 2020, as the\u00a0Supreme Court heard arguments in the major abortion case <em><a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2020\/03\/02\/supreme-court-abortion-kavanaugh-louisiana\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June Medical Services v. Russo<\/a><\/em>, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) threatened both Kavanaugh and Gorsuch over potentially ruling against abortion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want to tell you Gorsuch,\u201d Schumer warned, \u201cand I want to tell you Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou won\u2019t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>The threats prompted a rare rebuke from Chief Justice John Roberts, who <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2020\/03\/04\/supreme-court-john-roberts-chuck-schumer-dangerous-threatening-abortion\/?page=9\">warned<\/a> that \u201c<span class=\"css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0\">threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The court <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2020\/06\/29\/scotus-strikes-down-louisiana-abortion-restrictions\/\">ultimately ruled<\/a> with abortion advocates in <em>June Medical Services v. Russo<\/em>, with Roberts joining the liberal members of the court.<\/p>\n<p>Severino and Judicial Crisis Network have particularly criticized a network of \u201cleft-wing dark money groups in the Arabella Advisors network,\u201d accusing these groups of doing \u201ceverything in their power to\u00a0corrupt the judiciary and the judicial nominations process.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That network includes Demand Justice, a judicial activism organization\u00a0initially established as a project of the Sixteen Thirty Fund,\u00a0(the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2021\/11\/arabella-advisors-money-democrats\/620553\/\">indisputable heavyweight of Democratic dark mone<\/a>y\u201d), which is\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.arabellaadvisors.com\/expertise\/fiscal-sponsorship\/\">administered<\/a> by Arabella Advisors.<\/p>\n<p>Demand Justice, which\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/progressive-demand-justice-group-spin-off-c68f3cf4-3217-4d24-b52c-ab4826305130.html\">broke off<\/a> from Sixteen Thirty Fund and registered as a nonprofit corporation in May 2021, has not responded to numerous requests for comment from The Daily Wire.<\/p>\n<p>The organization is absolutely flush with cash that it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/progressives-scotus-confirmation-spending-f45f2d0a-f977-43d9-972d-effb4b55a49e.html\">intends<\/a> to channel into the Supreme Court confirmation of President Joe Biden\u2019s nominee, Judge\u00a0Ketanji Brown Jackson (Jackson\u2019s hearings with senators begin this week).<\/p>\n<p>Arabella Advisors, an influential progressive <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2021\/11\/arabella-advisors-money-democrats\/620553\/\">dark money<\/a> group,\u00a0has\u00a0distanced\u00a0itself from Demand Justice amid the organization\u2019s increasingly high-profile judicial activism.<\/p>\n<p>But conservative groups like Judicial Crisis Network insist that Arabella is the mastermind behind both the dark money trail to the Supreme Court and the smear campaign against justices who will not cooperate.<\/p>\n<p>Court-packing is the pet strategy of many of these groups. In January, a slew of progressive groups <a href=\"https:\/\/www.takebackthecourt.today\/press-release-unrig-the-courts-coalition\">formed<\/a> the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/unrigthecourts.org\/\">Unrig the Courts<\/a>\u00a0coalition, specifically created to expand the court.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Supreme Court has become too partisan and too political, and with a united Democratic government the time to act is now,\u201d\u00a0Demand Justice Executive Director Brian Fallon said at the time.\u00a0\u201cThe 6-3 Republican-appointed majority consistently sides with Republican politicians and corporate interests over the American people, and we must act before they rig the rules of our democracy even further.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In April 2021, Demand Justice launched a campaign to pressure Justice Stephen Breyer to step down and make way for the first black female Supreme Court justice (Jackson<a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/regulation\/court-battles\/547355-progressive-group-ramps-up-pressure-on-justice-breyer-to-retire?rl=1\"> was already considered<\/a> the top candidate at the time).<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Here&#8217;s a photo of Demand Justice&#8217;s billboard truck outside of Union Station. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/2N1Md9WSiV\">pic.twitter.com\/2N1Md9WSiV<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jbendery\/status\/1380523176791248896?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 9, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Fallon, a former top aide to Senate Majority Leader Schumer, insisted in April 2021 that it was \u201cworrisome that Justice Breyer has not said yet that he will step down.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The group\u2019s campaign was accompanied by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2021\/04\/14\/stephen-breyer-retirement-supreme-court-481197\">pressure<\/a>\u00a0for Breyer retire from Democratic politicians, including\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/local\/legal-issues\/biden-judicial-nominees-supreme-court-breyer\/2021\/04\/23\/eb770fec-a2fc-11eb-85fc-06664ff4489d_story.html\">Democratic Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal<\/a>\u00a0and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2021\/06\/14\/politics\/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-stephen-breyer-scotus\/index.html\">Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>And when Breyer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/highly-unusual-new-development-on-supreme-court-justice-stephen-breyers-retirement-raises-questions\">finally announced<\/a> his retirement in January, Demand Justice\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/ballsandstrikes.org\/about-balls-and-strikes\/\">courts website<\/a> \u201cBalls &#038; Strikes\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/ballsandstrikes.org\/scotus\/stephen-breyer-retiring-huzzah\/\">published a piece<\/a> that credited Breyer\u2019s retirement to\u00a0being \u201cshamed by your tweets.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Such pressure on a justice to retire is not new: former President Barack Obama and Democratic Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy reportedly pressured the late Justice Ginsburg to retire so that a younger liberal justice could be named, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-usa-court-ginsburg\/u-s-justice-ginsburg-hits-back-at-liberals-who-want-her-to-retire-idUSKBN0G12V020140801\">prompting Ginsburg to ask publicly<\/a> in 2014, \u201cSo tell me who the president could have nominated this spring that you would rather see on the court than me?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But the level of vitriol directed toward sitting justices as of late is different, and it is in great part due to the growing influence of Justice Thomas, says Mark Paoletta, the former general counsel for the Office of Management &#038; Budget under President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n<p>Paoletta, who\u00a0served as a lawyer in the George H.W. Bush White House Counsel\u2019s Office and worked on Justice Thomas\u2019s confirmation, told The Daily Wire that \u201cJustice Thomas has been laying down markers\u201d for a long time \u2014 writing opinions that the court catches up to years later.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is the only branch of government they don\u2019t control,\u201d Paoletta said of liberal activists, noting that they worry the conservative justices \u201care about to come down with a bunch of rulings that they fear are going to wipe away all of these liberal landmarks rulings.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019re trying to de-legitimize court,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Paoletta referenced a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2022\/02\/14\/amy-coney-barretts-long-game\">February New Yorker piece<\/a> on Amy Coney Barrett direly warning that Barrett \u201cisn\u2019t just another conservative\u2014she\u2019s the product of a Christian legal movement that is intent on remaking America.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He also pointed to an incident in January wherein commentators and liberal media\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/media\/liberal-media-pounced-on-gorsuch-before-chief-justice-roberts-sotomayor-debunked-viral-npr-report\">piled onto<\/a> Justice Neil Gorsuch over an unverified report that the Supreme Court justice had refused to wear a mask to accommodate his colleague, Justice\u00a0Sonia Sotomayor.<\/p>\n<p>In an unprecedented move, Gorsuch and Sotomayor issued a joint statement that NPR\u2019s story was \u201cfalse,\u201d noting they are \u201cwarm colleagues and friends.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps most egregiously, Thomas\u2019s wife has become a focal point of the \u201csmear campaigns\u201d that Paoletta and Severino describe. Media have dragged Ginni Thomas <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/courts\/exclusive-ginni-thomas-sets-the-record-straight-on-january-6\/\">for appearing<\/a> at the rally before the Capitol Riot, insistently suggesting that Thomas violates ethics laws due to his wife\u2019s political interests.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLike so many married couples, we share many of the same ideals, principles, and aspirations for America,\u201d Thomas <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/courts\/exclusive-ginni-thomas-sets-the-record-straight-on-january-6\/\">told The<\/a> Washington Free Beacon last week. \u201cBut we have our own separate careers, and our own ideas and opinions too. Clarence doesn\u2019t discuss his work with me, and I don\u2019t involve him in my work.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/baseless-recusal-attack-clarence-thomas-opinion-1686780\">March 11 Newsweek piece<\/a>, Paoletta warned that such criticism demands \u201ca new standard for recusal that has no place in the law or in past practice,\u201d noting that many spouses of judges work in politics or in public policy.<\/p>\n<p>Those who criticize Ginni Thomas for her Republican stances often overlook the fact that Marty Ginsburg, husband to the late justice, practiced law at a firm that represented parties that were before the high court, Paoletta noted.<\/p>\n<p>Ginsburg\u2019s daughter even wrote an article about a Supreme Court \u00a0case \u2014 and Ginsburg voted for the very result that her daughter advocated for.<\/p>\n<p>Paoletta emphasized to The Daily Wire that Ginsburg did not recuse herself in either of the situations involving her relations, noting that the current law and standards did not require her to do this.<\/p>\n<p>Yet under new activist pro-claimed-standards, Thomas is continually called to recuse himself over his wife\u2019s longtime conservative beliefs, though she neither practices law nor writes briefs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe merely builds conservative coalitions to pursue shared <em>political<\/em> aims,\u201d writes Paoletta. \u201cNone of her activities require Justice Thomas to recuse.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven so, the press <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2022\/01\/31\/is-ginni-thomas-a-threat-to-the-supreme-court\" rel=\"nofollow\">criticized<\/a> Ginni Thomas for honoring conservative leaders at an awards luncheon, because those individuals subsequently filed amicus briefs at the Supreme Court,\u201d he continued. \u201cHistorically, this has not required recusal.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><em>Ginsburg once <a href=\"https:\/\/scholarlycommons.law.hofstra.edu\/cgi\/viewcontent.cgi?article=1949&#038;context=faculty_scholarship\" rel=\"nofollow\">donated<\/a> an autographed copy of her VMI opinion to the pro-abortion NOW Political Action Committee, which auctioned off the opinion at a fundraiser in 1997.\u00a0Moreover, in 2004, she <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/archives\/la-xpm-2004-mar-11-na-ginsburg11-story.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">spoke<\/a> at a lecture named after herself for the NOW Legal Defense Fund, on whose board she served in the 1970s. Two weeks before that lecture, Justice Ginsburg voted in favor of a position advocated by the NOW Legal Defense Fund in an amicus brief.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s all about undermining the faith in the court and trying to intimidate justices,\u201d Paoletta told The Daily Wire. \u201cThey know that they\u2019ll never intimidate Justice Thomas. They\u2019ve been trying to do this since he came to town in the 1980s. And it hasn\u2019t worked.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a class=\"in-cell-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">member<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON \u2014 On a warm September 2021 evening, a quiet, wealthy, Chevy Chase neighborhood erupted with chants of activists marching, singing, and yelling.Mere days before the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1391370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1391370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1391370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1391370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1391370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}