Justice Brett Kavanaugh is probably reading this

KANSAS CITY, Missouri — Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined a chorus of Supreme Court colleagues acknowledging that many federal judges feel beleaguered, although he did so without directly mentioning the fusillade of verbal attacks President Donald Trump and his supporters have leveled at judges, including calling for their impeachment.

“The judges have difficult jobs — face a lot of pressure to get it right, face a lot of criticism, have to keep their eye on the ball, and I just want all the judges in the room to know how much I appreciate what they do,” Kavanaugh said at a judicial conference Thursday. “It's a lot to deal with all the things that are coming at you,” he added.

The Trump appointee addressed a variety of issues during an hourlong onstage conversation before a gathering here of 8th Circuit judges and lawyers, including the high court’s use of the so-called emergency docket and what he said was an inaccurate perception of a court divided into warring ideological camps.

Kavanaugh also made clear he closely follows press coverage, podcasts and social media posts about the Supreme Court, what he described as “an ocean of criticism and critiques out there.”

“I'm aware of it. I definitely pay attention to it. I think you have to. We're public officials who serve the American people. It's not an academic exercise,” said Kavanaugh, who worked as a White House lawyer for former President George W. Bush. “It's important for maintaining public confidence in the judiciary and the Supreme Court to know how the opinions are being conveyed and received and understood by the American people.”

Kavanaugh expressed empathy for the front-line jurists who are typically the first to wade into controversial disputes about federal government actions.

“I'm the son of a trial judge. My mom was a trial judge,” the justice said during the conversation with one of his former law clerks, Sarah Pitlyk, who is now a district court judge in Missouri.

“That's an extremely difficult job. You're doing it by yourself. You're not able to consult with colleagues in the way that members of an appellate court or the Supreme Court can do, and I know how difficult that job is,” Kavanaugh said, echoing a point made in May by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Trump’s public ire has been directed mostly at district court judges, branding as a “radical left lunatic” one who blocked aspects of his deportation efforts and another as a “total disaster” for stymieing his efforts to punish Harvard University for allegedly condoning antisemitism. Trump White House adviser Stephen Miller has said the president is beset by “Communist” judges seizing his power.

Kavanaugh’s remarks came as several federal judges spoke out in a videoconference Thursday about death threats they’d received and their belief that heated political rhetoric fueled such threats and potential violence.

Kavanaugh made no mention of threats to judges, although a man has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing for attempting to assassinate the justice at his home in 2022. Kavanaugh touted judicial independence as “the crown jewel of our constitutional democracy,” but did not paint it as acutely endangered in the way the court’s liberal justices have suggested in recent months.

Kavanaugh also defended the Supreme Court’s handling of the so-called emergency docket, where the Trump administration has filed more than 20 urgent appeals and has often found success blocking some of the district court rulings Trump has complained about. Critics argue that the Supreme Court issues rulings of massive significance on that docket without detailed opinions and typically without the legal briefing and argument that goes into regular cases.

“Because of the importance of those questions, we have been, I think, doing more and more process to try to get the right answer on those,” Kavanaugh said. “Lots of new processes that we have undertaken over really the last five or six years to help us make the best decision we can in the short time we have.”

With some lower-court judges expressing irritation at the high court for not explaining its reasoning in emergency orders, Kavanaugh pronounced himself “a fan” of the court doing so. But he cautioned there are some drawbacks and some disagreement among the justices about the wisdom of more detailed emergency docket rulings.

“I think there are different views among members of the court about when to do it and when not. We're nine independent people,” he said.

Kavanaugh did seek to minimize perceptions of a stark divide at the Supreme Court between liberal and conservative camps. He referred to his colleagues by their first names and insisted relationships among the justices are friendly.

“The collegiality of the Supreme Court is very strong, strong to this day, was strong when I got there. We all look out for each other. We all think the other eight are patriots and are good people,” Kavanaugh said.

Asked to discuss some of his most significant recent opinions, Kavanaugh drew attention to the high court’s unanimous ruling just over a year ago that found an anti-abortion doctors’ group lacked legal standing to challenge the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a key abortion drug, mifepristone.

“I don't think anyone had on their bingo card going into that case that it would be a 9-0 opinion written by Kavanaugh,” the justice said.

On several occasions during the hour-long onstage exchange, Kavanaugh mentioned or alluded to his friendly personal ties with members of the Trump administration and that several of his law clerks had been appointed to the federal bench. Kavanaugh also noted that Vice President JD Vance was in a seminar he taught at Yale Law School and second lady Usha Vance was one of his law clerks when he served on a federal appeals court in Washington.

Kavanaugh recalled Usha Vance remarking during her D.C. Circuit clerkship that her husband was working on a book.

“Turned out to be ‘Hillbilly Elegy.’ It was time well spent by JD,” the justice said with a chuckle.

Despite Kavanaugh’s personal ties to figures in the administration, his relationship with Trump has been rocky.

After the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election, he railed bitterly against the justices and appeared to single out Kavanaugh, whom Trump supported through a stormy confirmation process.

“I'm not happy with the Supreme Court,” Trump said in his speech on the Ellipse just prior to the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol. “I picked three people. I fought like hell for them. One in particular, I fought. They all said, ‘Sir, cut him loose.’ ... We got him through. And you know what, they couldn't give a damn. … It almost seems that they're all going out of their way to hurt all of us and to hurt our country.”