Trump Visits Supreme Court to Pay Respects to Late Justice Stevens

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump visited the Supreme Court on Monday to pay his respects to former Justice John Paul Stevens, who is lying in repose after his death last week at age 99.

Stevens retired in 2010 after nearly 35 years on the court, where he was a leading liberal voice on presidential powers, the death penalty and individual rights. Trump won election in part on a promise to select future Supreme Court justices from a list of established conservative lawyers and judges. He has already won confirmation of two, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.

He bowed his head at Stevens’s coffin and examined his portrait -- for about two minutes -- but didn’t speak publicly. He was accompanied by First Lady Melania Trump.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan attended a short ceremony for Stevens earlier in the day. Kagan said he “lived a life of integrity and kindness and decency and service.”

On his way to the court, Trump again attacked four liberal lawmakers on Twitter, calling them “racist.”

Trump has been feuding with the four House members, all women of color, since a series of July 14 tweets in which he invited them to “go back” to the “broken and crime infested places from which they came.” Many Democrats and some Republicans have called Trump’s tweets racist.

To contact the reporters on this story: Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net;Josh Wingrove in Washington at jwingrove4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Justin Blum

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