Welcome back, Deadline: Legal Newsletter readers. The Supreme Court added to the term's already heavy docket, agreeing on Monday to consider the Trump administration's quest to quickly end humanitarian protections for Haitians and Syrians.
Yet the week's court news arguably started Sunday night, when President Donald Trump lashed out on social media. He complained in lengthy posts about the tariffs ruling (which he mischaracterized) and other gripes, including the 2020 election loss that still haunts him and his disappointment in the court's Republican appointees.
He referred to the "Democrats" and "Republicans" on the court, forgoing the more precise, if euphemistic, label of Democratic and Republican appointees. The president groused on Truth Social that GOP justices "openly disrespect the Presidents who nominate them to the highest position in the Land."
By "openly disrespect," he apparently meant some of the Republican appointees occasionally rule against him. At the risk of stating the obvious, the court has been helpful to Trump, both personally and presidentially.
But it's not the Trump Court. It's the Roberts Court. And though there's overlap between the two, Chief Justice John Roberts is playing a longer game. That means the court occasionally checks the Republican president, even while largely approving his policies and keeping him out of prison.
Roberts didn't directly respond to Trump's latest meltdown. But he happened to have a public appearance on Tuesday, at which he put yet more distance between himself and the president. While in conversation with a federal judge at Rice University in Houston, the chief justice called personal attacks on judges "dangerous," and he deemed "absurd" the notion that justices carry forward the agenda of the presidents who appointed them.
Again, he didn't call out Trump by name. But one needn't squint to see the application to the president's tariffs crash-out, which has featured calling justices who ruled against him traitors and embarrassments to their families.
Still, Roberts can't escape Trump, who has continued to dominate the high court's docket, even when the litigation doesn't directly involve him. Take Steve Bannon, whose appeal the justices considered at their private conference on Friday. The Justice Department is supporting the Trump ally's bid to upend his contempt conviction, and we may learn as soon as Monday morning whether the justices are prepared to bless that partnership.
After the court issues its order list at 9:30 a.m. ET on Monday, which could have news on Bannon's petition and many others, the court will kick off its March argument sitting with a hearing in Watson v. RNC. The court's latest foray into election litigation ahead of the midterms concerns timing rules for casting ballots. Solicitor General D. John Sauer is set to appear in support of the Republican National Committee, which wants to block mail ballots received after Election Day, even if they're sent by then.
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