The Federalist Society, a major force in shaping the conservative legal movement, is again under scrutiny over its relationship with former President Donald Trump. In a recent episode of the Amicus Plus podcast, legal advocate Lisa Graves argued that the group has played a central role in advancing Trump-aligned judicial priorities while avoiding public criticism of his most controversial actions, even as Trump has turned his ire on key conservative figures such as Leonard Leo and Charles Koch over issues including tariffs.
The Federalist Society has long described itself as a nonpartisan forum for debate about the rule of law. Critics, however, say it has functioned as a powerful engine for advancing conservative legal priorities, especially in the federal courts. Lisa Graves, a progressive legal watchdog and former senior Justice Department official, reiterated this critique in a recent conversation with Slate's Dahlia Lithwick on the Amicus Plus podcast, which focused on the current Supreme Court and the conservative legal movement.
Graves argued that the organization, which was founded in the early 1980s amid backlash to what conservatives saw as an overly liberal judiciary, helped build a pipeline that placed like-minded lawyers in influential roles in government and on the bench. She said that pipeline later proved crucial to securing a durable conservative majority on the Supreme Court and in the lower federal courts during and after Trump's presidency. According to Slate's account of the interview, Graves characterized the Society's project as aimed at entrenching a regressive legal agenda and criticized its insistence that it takes no official positions on contested legal issues.
During the podcast, Graves pointed to landmark conservative victories on the Court, including the overturning of Roe v. Wade and a series of decisions expanding religious rights and narrowing LGBTQ protections, as examples of outcomes long championed by figures in and around the Federalist Society. She argued that, despite the group's formal claim of neutrality, many of the judges celebrated at its events have been committed to rolling back abortion rights and limiting marriage equality.
Graves also faulted the Society for declining to publicly oppose Trump's efforts to test the limits of presidential power. She noted that, in case after case, the Supreme Court's conservative majority sided with Trump or the presidency on questions such as executive authority and deference to the administration, often reversing lower court rulings that had blocked or constrained his initiatives. In her view, those decisions collectively strengthened the "unitary executive" theory and signaled broad judicial tolerance for sweeping presidential powers.
The Slate report describes Graves as especially alarmed by the Court's recent embrace of broad presidential immunity for official acts, which she called an extraordinary and dangerous expansion of executive power. She argued that such rulings mark a sharp break with earlier understandings of presidential accountability, even as leading conservative legal figures and organizations, including the Federalist Society, have largely refrained from public criticism.
The current landscape, Graves suggested, reflects decades of conservative frustration with earlier Republican-appointed justices who were perceived as insufficiently reliable. She pointed to the conservative movement's disappointment with figures such as Sandra Day O'Connor and David Souter, who sometimes joined opinions upholding precedents on abortion and civil rights, and to the subsequent rallying cry of "No more Souters" as the movement pushed for ideologically consistent nominees. That push culminated in the John Roberts Court, which has overseen major decisions weakening campaign-finance limits and key parts of the Voting Rights Act.
Trump's presidency intensified this dynamic. With help from conservative legal networks that included prominent Federalist Society leaders and allies, Trump filled scores of federal judgeships and three Supreme Court seats. Graves told Lithwick that many of these judges were vetted with the explicit expectation that they would advance a robust conservative agenda, and she argued that the Court has often protected Trump-friendly policies and prerogatives against lower court skepticism.
Against this backdrop, tensions have grown between Trump and some of the movement's power brokers. As Slate reports, Trump has used his Truth Social platform to lash out at Leonard Leo, a longtime Federalist Society leader and architect of the conservative judicial project, as well as at billionaire industrialist Charles Koch and his network. In a recent post quoted by Slate, Trump accused Leo, Koch and "countries and slimeballs" of having "ripped off the United States" through their approach to tariffs and trade and vowed that the courts would no longer enable them to "destroy our country."
Graves interpreted Trump's attacks as a warning shot to conservative donors and operatives whom he now views as insufficiently loyal or overly independent. At the same time, she noted that Koch-aligned groups have generally benefited from Republican tax and deregulatory policies and remain deeply invested in a conservative legal agenda that limits regulation, curbs administrative power and restricts rights such as abortion access.
Those overlapping interests have produced an uneasy alliance. According to Slate's reporting, business-oriented conservatives have raised quiet concerns about Trump's expansive tariff proposals, which could clash with traditional Republican commitments to free trade and predictable markets. Any future legal fights over tariff authority could put parts of the conservative legal movement at odds with Trump, even as they continue to align with him on questions of executive power, deregulation and the broader direction of the federal courts.
Looking ahead, Graves warned that the same donor networks and legal organizations that helped shape the current Court are already preparing for the next electoral cycle. Koch-backed and other conservative groups are expected to spend heavily in congressional and state-level races, aiming to secure majorities that would lock in conservative gains in the judiciary and make it easier for a future Republican president, including Trump, to advance a maximalist agenda.
