Justice Amy Coney Barrett has been the object of the online right’s rage ever since she ruled against the Trump administration last week in its bid to freeze foreign aid payments.

But the person who played a pivotal role in bringing her to the court tells The Gavel the criticism is unwarranted.

“I wouldn't characterize his appointment of her as being a DEI hire,” Leonard Leo told us in a Tuesday interview.

“She's so well credentialed, she's so demonstrably conservative in her outlook on the role of the courts, that I just think that kind of mischaracterizes it.”

Other than President Trump and former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), perhaps no one has played as central a role as Leo in shaping the Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative supermajority.

A longtime leader of The Federalist Society, Leo over decades formed a conservative judicial pipeline fueled by an influential network of donors. He helped compose the lists Trump used to select his three Supreme Court nominees during his first term.

Though some of Trump’s most fervent supporters have bashed Barrett on social media, Trump himself on Sunday defended her as “very smart” and a “very good woman.”

Trump’s return to the White House has now ignited speculation that he may get to replace Justices Clarence Thomas, 76, and Samuel Alito, 74, the court’s leading conservatives and its two oldest jurists. If both step down, Trump would be the first president since Dwight Eisenhower to appoint a majority of sitting justices.

But Leo expressed caution, telling us it doesn’t appear there will be any “imminent” vacancies. Notably, Trump didn’t release a public list of potential Supreme Court nominees when he ran this time.

“If you look at the lawyers who have been appointed to serve in the current administration, both at the White House Counsel's Office and some at the Department of Justice, these are individuals who are legal conservatives who understand the proper role of the court, have a lot of great contacts within the conservative legal community and I think will serve the President very well as a resource for identifying future nominees,” Leo said.

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Todd Blanche's career gamble pays off

Two years ago, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche made a gamble.

A registered New York Democrat, Blanche gave up his cushy partnership at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, leaving the world of Big Law to take on a new client: President Trump.

Fast forward two years, and Blanche holds all the aces.

He is now a registered Republican in Florida and attended the Republican National Convention. And after winning Senate confirmation in a party-line 52-46 vote last week, he’s now the Justice Department’s No. 2 official.

Blanche’s new role turns the tables after he felt slighted by both his law firm for refusing to associate with Trump and the broader criminal defense bar and TV legal punditry for their public attacks.

Reflecting during an interview last year with his friend and defense attorney David Oscar Markus, Blanche invoked Jeffrey Epstein and Hunter Biden.

“They can have Big Law represent them, and the Big Law lawyers get awards. They get to go to galas, they get to speak. They're posting on the LinkedIn how amazing they are,” Blanche said.

“But then if you're representing somebody like the former president of the United States in a white-collar case, then I have to leave my law firm,” he lamented.

Already, Blanche and his right-hand man, Principal Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, are getting the last laugh. The duo is moving to dismantle of one of the highest-profile prosecutions brought by their former office of the U.S.........

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