Neil Gorsuch 'exchanged sharp words' with Jackson before Friday ruling: report

The day before Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett took a highly-criticized personal shot at Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, fellow conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch also sniped at his liberal colleague.

According to a report from Politico on increased tensions within the nation's highest court, as the 6-3 conservative majority continues to use the "shadow docket" to hand Donald Trump questionable wins, Politico is reporting that Brown Jackson's opinions, often in dissent, are getting under the skin of conservatives justices.

On Saturday morning, Coney Barrett was called out by a Slate legal analyst for her "arrogant" broadside aimed at Brown Jackson when she dismissively wrote in her majority pro-Trump birthright citizenship ruling, "We will not dwell on Justice Jackson’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself."

Politico is reporting that Gorsuch, who was appointed to the Supreme Court by Trump after then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) blocked President Barack Obama's appointee, Merrick Garland, from receiving a hearing, also lashed out at Brown Jackson this week.

As Politico's Josh Gerstein wrote, "Gorsuch had exchanged sharp words [on Thursday] with Jackson — but this time, he was in the majority. Jackson, in an opinion joined by the court’s other two liberals, suggested the conservative majority’s decision allowing South Carolina to exclude Planned Parenthood from the Medicaid program there amounted to a continuation of the long campaign by racists and segregationists in the South to resist federal civil rights laws enacted in the wake of the Civil War."

With Brown Jackson writing, "A century and a half later, the project of stymying one of the country’s great civil rights laws continues,” Gerstein report,s "Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, dismissed the inflammatory claim out of hand, calling it 'extravagant.'"

The report adds that Chief Justice John Roberts has been trying to downplay tensions on the court, recently stating, "I’m sure people listening to the news or reading our decisions, particularly decisions that come out in May and June, maybe think, ‘Boy, those people really must hate each other. They must be at hammer and tong the whole time.’”

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