The liberal justice Elena Kagan has said it was “wrong” to accuse the US supreme court of becoming a rubber stamp for Donald Trump in his second term, amid criticism of its authorization of some of the president’s most controversial actions.
Pointing to rulings against the president on key issues such as tariffs, Kagan – one of three liberals on a court that has in recent years been defined by rulings authored by members of its six-justice conservative majority – defended it at an annual gathering of attorneys and judges for the ninth judicial circuit in Bellevue, Washington, on Thursday.
“Is this a really conservative court? The answer is yes. The second question is: is this a court that does whatever the current administration wants? The answer is no,” Kagan said.
It comes after the court allowed Trump to have his way on a string of issues. These include on immigration policy, where they upheld his effort to end temporary deportation protections for Haitians and Syrians, and also issued an order on the shadow docket that strips Venezuelans of those same protections.
Conservatives have also recently allowed Trump and future presidents to fire the heads of independent agencies, while boosting his Republican allies’ chances of keeping control of the House of Representatives by weakening the Voting Rights Act.
Three members of the court’s conservative majority were appointed by Trump during his first term.
But Kagan pointed to the court’s February ruling, in which she and the liberals joined three conservative justices to strike down Trump’s use of executive authority to impose tariffs on a host of countries.
“Tariffs is probably the key policy issue for this president,” said Kagan, who joined the court in 2010 after being appointed by Democratic president Barack Obama. “I don’t think that there are all that many decisions in recent times where a court strikes down such an important policy to a sitting president.”
Beyond trade policy, the supreme court has also scuppered Trump’s attempt to fire the Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, and blocked his administration’s effort to end birthright citizenship.
Kagan added: “I don’t see this as a court that is … going to rubber-stamp what the current administration does. You know, quite the opposite. I actually think that there are significant times with respect to very significant issues where the court has checked the executive branch.”
