More than a decade ago, President Obama scolded the Supreme Court for reversing “a century of law” and opening “the floodgates for special interest” to “spend without limit in our elections.”

It was during the State of the Union, and while the former president qualified his criticism by offering “all due deference to the separation of powers,” Justice Samuel Alito was caught on camera muttering an objection. Seated in the front of the House of Representatives, Alito seemed to say, “Not true.”

Meanwhile, Chief Justice John Roberts, who had employed a young lawyer from Missouri just two years prior, didn’t move a muscle.

Sen. Josh Hawley told RealClearPolitics that the episode “predates me,” but on the substance of the question, the senior Republican senator from Missouri, the same young lawyer who once clerked for Roberts on the high court, sides with Obama, not the conservative justices.