Christ, now the SCOTUS is leaking

[Trump appointee Neil] Gorsuch’s abrupt pivot to arrogance has been on full display in his bumptious opinions and questions from the bench. But it also appears to be infecting his interactions with justices behind the scenes. Whispers emerging from the court indicate Gorsuch is more likely to alienate than influence even his conservative colleagues.

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[NPR’s Nina] Totenberg, a renowned court reporter who is friendly with several justices, noted that Gorsuch “ticks off some members of the court—and I don’t think it’s just the liberals.” Without exposing her sources—“you talk to former law clerks, you talk to friends, you talk to some of the justices”—Totenberg then dropped a bombshell:

My surmise, from what I’m hearing, is that Justice [Elena] Kagan really has taken [Gorsuch] on in conference. And that it’s a pretty tough battle and it’s going to get tougher. And she is about as tough as they come, and I am not sure he’s as tough—or dare I say it, maybe not as smart. I always thought he was very smart, but he has a tin ear somehow, and he doesn’t seem to bring anything new to the conversation.

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Conference is famously sacrosanct: It’s where the justices gather to cast their votes in the cases of the week, with each explaining his or her reasoning in order of seniority. Nobody else is allowed to attend. If rumors leak about a justice’s behavior in conference—and they basically never do—it is almost certainly a justice who leaked them.

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CNN’s Joan Biskupic, another well-connected, widely respected Supreme Court reporter [...] notes that Gorsuch has “shaken relations at the high court,” creating “personal tensions” at a formerly placid workplace.

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Gorsuch has generated some ill will among justices. Signs have emerged from the bench, too, as Gorsuch has been on the receiving end of a few retorts.

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Kagan is cool-headed and pragmatic, but she does not suffer fools gladly. She does enjoy sparring with Justice Samuel Alito, but Alito is a brilliant intellect with a misanthropic wit. Gorsuch, by comparison, is a Fox News anchor’s idea of a first-rate justice: an insipid ideologue peddling warmed-over dogmas.

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For now it is safe to say that, in Gorsuch, the justices did not get the deal they were promised.

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He was supposed to build a new conservative consensus.

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Justice Antonin Scalia could be a grouch, but he developed warm friendships with many of his colleagues, including those to his left. Gorsuch is a pale imitation of his predecessor, boasting a bratty attitude that has nettled justices across the ideological spectrum.

  Slate