Trump accuses right-wing org's leader of 'rigging' courts: 'Very dangerous mouth!'

President Donald Trump escalated his attacks on one of his former most powerful allies in a rant on his Truth Social platform Tuesday afternoon.

"Sleazebag 'influencer' and lawyer Leonard Leo, who has legal issues of his own, goes around telling everyone how he has the Legal System RIGGED," Trump wrote. "I hope that’s not true and, if it is, it should be thoroughly looked into. Leonard has a big and very dangerous mouth!"

Leonard Leo is the longtime leader of the Federalist Society, a right-wing network of lawyers and legal scholars who infamously make up a sort of "pipeline" to help conservative law students to win clerkships with conservative judges, then judgeships themselves under Republican presidents up to and including the Supreme Court.

He had a hand in advising Trump's first administration on judicial appointments to transform the federal bench in the GOP's favor, and was the architect of a right-wing takeover of the courts that allowed for decisions like the overturn of Roe v. Wade. In 2024, he pledged $1 billion to "crush liberal dominance" in the media and corporate boards.

But in his second term, Trump has soured on Leo, largely out of suspicion that Leo had influenced some of the judges who ruled against him on key issues like his tariff scheme.

Last year, he proclaimed, "I was new to Washington, and it was suggested that I use The Federalist Society as a recommending source on Judges. I did so, openly and freely, but then realized that they were under the thumb of a real 'sleazebag' named Leonard Leo, a bad person who, in his own way, probably hates America, and obviously has his own separate ambitions."

This comes amid reporting that Trump is hitting significant roadblocks appointing judges at the same pace he did in his last term, partly because of his falling out with groups like the Federalist Society, and partly because former President Joe Biden filled as many vacancies on the way out as possible to leave him with far fewer chances to make new appointments.