Latest news with #conservativeMovement
New York Times
3 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
A Fiery Brief Fueled by Conservatives Helped Put Trump's Tariffs in Peril
A powerful sign that President Trump's tariff-driven trade war is at risk came in a friend-of-the-court brief filed in April by a coalition that included many prominent conservative and libertarian lawyers, scholars and former officials. The brief was also a signal of a deepening rift between Mr. Trump and the conservative legal movement, one that burst into public view last week with the president's attacks on the Federalist Society, whose leaders helped pick the judges and justices he nominated in his first term. Among the people who signed the brief in the tariffs case was Richard Epstein, who teaches at New York University and is an influential libertarian legal scholar. 'You have to understand that the conservative movement is now, as an intellectual movement, consistently anti-Trump on most issues,' he said. Others who signed the brief, filed in the U.S. Court of International Trade, included Steven G. Calabresi, a founder of the Federalist Society; Michael B. Mukasey, a former federal judge who served as attorney general under President George W. Bush; and three former Republican senators — George F. Allen, John C. Danforth and Chuck Hagel. The brief was signed by liberals, too, including Harold Koh, a former dean of Yale Law School. 'The brief unites big-name constitutional law scholars across the political spectrum in a way I have rarely seen,' said Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University and a lawyer for a wine importer and other businesses that sued over the tariffs. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Washington Post
6 days ago
- Business
- Washington Post
Trump blames conservative legal world and one of its leaders for tariffs ruling
President Donald Trump lashed out at the conservative legal movement and one of its prominent leaders, Leonard Leo, on Thursday night, blaming them for the federal court ruling that blocked most of his tariffs this week. In doing so, Trump deepened a schism with an influential community that was crucial to shaping his first term but has increasingly fallen out of favor with the president as he ramps up attacks on the judiciary.
