Transcripts For CSPAN2 Ruth Marcus Supreme Ambition 20240713

Im bradly graham the cohonor of politics and prose and welcome and thank you so much for coming. We were vers very excited when we learned of last years hearings on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court that ruth marcus was writing a book on the subject because we knee that if anyone could deliver an indepth hen the scene s account of what happened, and also put the whole drama into a grander plate context it would be ruth. Her bookes revealing and incitele and evened hands and fast pace and elusive pros makes for a compelling read. In the acknowledgments she calls thats book she has been preparing to write for her entire career. And indeed she brought to it a wealth of knowledge and experience. Out indicate net history at yale and the how at harvard she went into journalism after he studies and spent 35 years at the Washington Post, closely observing how washington works and developing a wide network of friends and sources. I think nearly all of whom are here tonight. As a reporter or editor ruth was involve in coverage of such key institutions the white house, congress, Justice Department and Supreme Court, and then in 2003 she joint the post Editorial Board and is now deputy editor. In 2006 she began writing a regular column and already the next year was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in comment care. If the cited her intelligence and incisetive commentary on a range of subjects using a voice that can be serious or playful and all that remains true of her columns to this day. As for the kavanaugh story men of out followed it on tv and the media closely but ruth in researching her book conducted nearly 300 interviews and reveals mump we didnt know about how kavanaughs nomination came about, and was then pushed through the senate. Beyond just filling in details about kavanaughs ascension, ruth places any larger context of a calculated, threedecades long conservative effort to cement control over the high court. That campaign, as ruth describes, ended up merging last year with kavanaughs own lifelong aim to secure a spot on the court. It was a joining of two supreme ambitions in which turned into a very messy and flawed confirmation process with disturbing and lasting consequences for kavanaugh, the court and our country. As with any good columnist, ruth who is known kavanaugh for years, offers up her own informed opinion and tells us very clearly in in final finals of her book what she thinks of the Court Residents newest justice and his con irma make. Her confirmation, her own judgment is very tough, but also exceedingly fair. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming ruth marcus. [applause] i can see over this. I was a little worried. Wow, hi, everybody. Thank you all so much for coming. And thank you so much, brad, brads stole of half of what i wanted to say but one thing he stole that i wanted to say was the story of being able to be here tonight. Because its every the book is published today and its every authors ambition to be at politics and prose to talk about her book, and as it happened i ran into brad and lisa at an event, not that long ago, maybe six weeks ago, when it was defended at the lastish minute by the publisher we would speed up publication to today, december 3rd and the annual true store of what happened was that i told lissa, the book is being published demings 3inch she said to brad, brad, ruths become is coming out demings 3rd and brad said we dont do events and december and lissa said now we do. And is that okay to tell . If you know lissa, youll know its a true story. And im just so thrilled to be here. Im so thrilled to see my friends and my family and my colleagues and also unfamiliar faces who i hope have been readers and i hope will enjoy reading this book if want to give a shoutout before i talk but my book to another author whose become isnting published testimony. , rosen steele, called oppo. Hi, and if you are someone or know someone which you might if youre here tonight who is interested in how washington works, toms books do precisely what supreme ambition tries to do, which is to talk about d. C. Behind the scenes except he has a little more gunfire and i was thinking but saying a little more sex but well see about that. Toms first novel, shining city, was actually about vetting a Supreme Court nominee. So, i would say that maybe if the Trump Administration had brought on toms protagonist they might have saved themselves some trouble. But they didnt, and vetting seems to be a particular not strength of this administration. So, here i am. Supreme ambition is my first book, but as brad said, in his introduction, quoting me, its really the book ive been preparing to write my whole life, and the idea of writing it dime me very, very late in the confirmation process. Of that astonishing day we all remember when christine blase ford and then Brett Kavanaugh testified but her allegations and as the fbi was conducting and then quickly i would say too quickly concluding its investigation, and as then judge kavanaugh seem to be hurtling toward confirmation and i had been looking for the right back to write for a ufew years now and the kavanaugh confirmation exploded, and i thought two things. One was, there is a great behind the scenes story that we dont know yet for all the fantastic reporting that my kole legs at the post and elsewhere did but the kavanaugh nomination. Just a great story of what is going on behind the escapes here. And the second, which ill talk about more, is that this is a story that is bigger than Brett Kavanaugh. A story but the court, story pout the the tech okayed long consecutive effort to finally cement control of the court, which is what was achieved with the kavanaugh confirmation. And so i hope when you rad the book read the book youll decide i have achieved both goals, taking you behind the scenes and that ive developed the larger story, and just a couple of the behind the scenes moments and theres so many delicious ones. Theres the moment when im not making this one up center diane feinstein, senator chuck grassley, the Ranking Member and the chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee and aides are gathered in a bathroom off the Senate Judiciary committee. The senator fine fine motions senator grassley in, a ask the aide to gets the other aide so she could hell him for the first time but the Christine Blasey ford allegations and i have a picture in my iphone, i think it tweeted its the other day of the bathroom which looks like the faculty bathroom in a high school maybe never middle school, and that is the place where history was made. The moment when one of my favorite moments from not very long after that when white House Counsel don mcbegan is dealing with the aftermath of the chris stein blasey ford testimony in that time federal between when she testified and Brett Kavanaugh took the stand, and he and everybody thinks at that point that Brett Kavanaughs nomination is sunk, and the president of the United States is trying to call don mcdawn and he calls him and calls him and don mcdawn if you can imagine, ignoring phone calls from is is boss who this moe important person on the planet. Finally don mc deputy reaches him and says the president is trying to get you, you need to talk to him, and don has not been taking the calls because he is con veined correctly or not at the president is present to pull the nomination and he doesnt want to her it so he says i dont talk to quitters. So, im really looking forward to having President Trump read that one. When he read the book which i think he did because he tweeted the other day that it was not only badly written but he type this twice, badly rees eached. [laughter] which rhymes with something. And donald trump wasnt the only president who was having a hard time getting his phone calls through in the midst of the kavanaugh craziness. Theres this magnificent scene, this is the day after the hearings, when senator jeff flake decided at the very last minute he wants and needs in order to secure his vote, an fbi investigation, and its like the scene in the Marx Brothers movie where everybody is crowded into the stateroom because every senator and every staffer associated with the Judiciary Committee is crowded interest this anteroom and flake and senator koonce who is trying to get him to agree to the fbi investigation, are huddled together in a phone booth trying to reach the fbi director and somebody comes through with a phone saying, president bush is trying to reach senator flake. Because president george w. Bush started out as Brett Kavanaughs biggest hurdle when kavanaugh was trying to be chosen ace the Supreme Court nominee but then turn into Brett Kavanaughs big e advocate with the senators, senator flake said he was too busy to talk to president bush but the didnt call him a quit sore thats a good thing. In that same scene, we have senator ben sasse bursting into the anteroom and is angry at over some information he thought senator whitehouse was peddling that was adverse to judge kavanaugh and he says, where is shellon, i want to fight that guy. So its ick both the crowded Marx Brothers scene and lick a high school gymnasium. So, were here and i probably wouldnt have written this book had it not been for a the uproar over the Kristine Blasey Ford allegations and except for those who are members of my immediate family or the book group i hayes been part of you wouldnt be here either itself wasnt for Christine Blasey ford. But what i want to talk but in man way a lot of people i see in the program who have lived this along with me. The story of the kavanaugh confirmation is bigger and in many ways more important than the showdown that is transfixed us all in the fall of 2018. I wanted to tell the story put what happened hen the scenes buts i did want to spend some time in the poock and spend some time this evening talking about the larger history and the broadser implications of the kavanaugh battle. So if you indulge me ill talk but a few chapters of my life that intersection with that history and give you a sense of what led up the kavanaugh confirmation, so, the first is by the way, brad mentioned something want to point out because i have one huge reporting failure in this book that i need to confess to. So, like me, Brett Kavanaugh was history major at yale college and every history major at yale college has to write a senior thesis. I could not for the love of of life of me figure out what his senior have to sis was about. So if youre looking for criticism of the book, its she spent all that time and couldnt find out what he wrote his senior thesis on. But during the time i was in law school, progressives really ruled the Legal Academy and in fact still do and the notion of pretty the discussion accord together original intent over the framer is this whacky outlier idea, and wasnt something that anybody took particularly seriously, and it was sometime in my first or second year of law school that a band of conservatives who were sort of this beleaguered minority on Law School Campuses got together at yale and they had a conference for something that they called the Federalist Society, which was obviously going nowhere, and was never going to grow to be influence shall. And was just a way to make themselves feel good because they had such a crazy notion how to interpret the constitution. Didnt quite turn out of that way. The Federalist Society grew from this band of, also i say, wonky and beleaguered conservatives to become a couldnt of Employment Agency for conservative lawyers especially when republican president s were in office, and increasingly the vetting agency for getting these lawyers on the fer bench, and it became very helpful for one not very many years later, yale law student named Brett Kavanaugh. Shortly every came to the post in 1987, was the first new and its a First Episode but its still a very raw episode and al came in from the post and i wrote about this, that excruciatingly the first the reagan nomination ocean robert brock bork where Brett Kavanaugh would serve and one of the main argue. S during the bore debate whether i was legitimate to take a nominees ideology into account in deciding whether he or she of course it was only one she on the court at the time should be confirmed. Something that might also sound quaint, it was viewed as a remarkable demart tour from the usually staid storm of the proceedings when a grouped calm pupils for the american way released an advertisement that attacked bork and argued he shouldnt be confirmed, and of course today multiple Million Dollar Advertising Campaigns have become the norm in judicial confirmations. Bork was defeated and this is the third piece of i wantness. Six republicans voted against confirming him two democrats voted in favor and thats a set of defections from the party that are all but unimaginable today. The bork defeat in many ways led us directly to judge kavanaugh. First, after judge bork was defeated, and then some people in this room remember the next nominee was judge ginsburg who was defeat for the also quaint idea that it was improper to smoke marijuana with your students when youre a teach are at harvard law school. This was huge news pause we remember it. And the number three choice was a man who was a judge on the federal Appeals Court in california named anthony ken for whom Brett Kavanaugh later clerk and whose retirement paved the way for kavanaughs National Mission so it very possible we would not have Justice Kavanaugh today without that. The bork defeat was also a neveragain moment for the conservative legal movement. This was their chance to secure a solid conservative majority on the court, to the it was a much less Comfort Court than the court we have today and the court that justice ken left in the summer of 2018 and conservatives were beatenning on bork and vowed from that moment that would not happen again. The Federalist Society and its Vice President , leonard leo, began to assemble the architecture to make certain that wasnt going to happen, those gregory peck ads from people for the american way, were overtaken by these huge and instant Campaign Pains so fast forward to the children thomas and aanita hill hearing. Thats how i met my husband. He was an aide to a democratic senator and i was covering it for the Washington Post and we didnt start dating until afterwards but there was a lot of talk of sex in the interim, not between us but anyway, okay. This was a different kind of confirmation battle. Not about ideology but about sex. And the issue for if theres anybody in the room who doesnt remember it or one even born yet, the issue was whether Justice Thomas when he head of the eeoc or official in the education depth head made inappropriate sexual comments to anita hill who was a lawyer on his staff. And this was an episode that was both different from and an erie precursor to the cavanaugh hearings. It was different from them because the Judiciary Committee was entire live male and as much as the had to that Sexual Harassment was a problem they just dent get it. Couldnt fathom how if aneat what anita hill was alleging was true huh she could know nat comp forward withher accusation and could have followed him to its position. It was the same and shockingly the same as the kavanaugh nomination in a number of ways. One is the last minute nature of the allegation. Another is the vehement denial and volcanic anger from Justice Thomas and then almost identitily Justice Kavanaugh and the next chapter brings us all together which is impeachment. Not the current impeachment but the clinton one, because that is how i metcalf kavanaugh. He was i met Brett Kavanaugh. He work for ken starr, i was a less smart and less young writer doing legal analysis of the star report and impeachment proceedings, and the starr moment ways a real turning point for Brett Kavanaugh. In law school hi friends had a vague understanding he was guy who what consecutive, probably republican, but he wasnt hugely conservative. Wasnt the standout conservative on the campus. In fact, he was the first year law student that fall when the bork nomination was being debated and nobody can remember him expressing a view on that, which was the talk of the cam pulse. Judge bork had been an steamed professor at jail law. He was a good, solid law student, not a law student that any of this pastes thought would end up on the Supreme Court one day and then an amazing piece of luck came his way. He had been clerking for a perfectly respectable judge named what at the staple g. O. P. An opportunity arose that changed his life. There were some judges who are feed ever judges, who regularly send clerks to the Supreme Court. Judge stapleton was not a feeder judge inch fact there was one clerk and one clerk only who clerks for judge staplington and went on the Supreme Court and thats Justice Kavanaugh. Win on to be a Supreme Court clerk and thats Justice Kavanaugh. And judge well, then Brett Kavanaugh has actually lost out on a Supreme Court clerkship himself. He had an interview with the chief Justice Rhenquist but didnt get the job and looked like he would have a perfectly satisfying and very prestigious legal career. He was planning to go work at williams and connelly, final law firm here in town, and then he get a call that chenged his life. He got a call from a Yale Law School professor who headed the Federalist Society but didnt remember that Brett Kavanaugh had been in the Federalist Society and he hugh him well from the basketball court. This sports thing, doing sports is incredibly valuable to your career, and i say guys because i grew up in this pretitle mind era so dont get mad at me. When Brett Kavanaugh applied to yale college there were two questions on the yale application, both of is essays were about basketball. It work. I dont know. But so george priest calls Brett Kavanaugh and says, alex, a judge on the nine inch circuit in california, has an opening in champ chambers. He is known for his later notoriety as a judge who needed to resign or retire after allegations about his own misbehavior and Sexual Misconduct in terms of inappropriate comment and behavior towards female clerks and other lawyers cam up. Judge kaczynski had an opening in his chambers, a guy named alex azar. This world is so small. Al lengths azar the secretary of health and Human Services had been angling for a clerkship with judge kaczynski for almost since the got to law school help got it and the mysteriously for reasons that are system cloaked in mystery, he left the clerkship after six weeks. That credited an opening that change red kavanaugh 6 00s life. He was asked by george priest if he was interested if said, heck, yes, head it out to california, and that set him on a completely different trajectory. That sent him first to work for then solicitor general starr in the Solicitor Generals Office and opened up the possible and then the reality of a clerkship with justice ken because judge kaczynski was in fact the person who helped to schreck the clerk for judge kennedy on the Appeals Court, and he helped to select judge kennedys clerks. Justice kens clerks, and that changed kavanaugh 6 00s Brett Kavanaughs life. He later based on the relationship if judge starr, then solicitor general starr, went to work for starr when he was investigating the clintons impeachment and this was another u. Ing point in Brett Kavanaughs life, huge surprise to his friends because they thought it was quite a partisan choice for him. And they were even more surprised when they couldnt find the right page of their book of their speech. They were even more surprised when he win to clock for starr where he really developed this an animus towards the clintons emerge at the hearings where he talk about the desire for revenge on behalf of the clintons and that was a really amazing moment but wasnt that amazing to some of the people who had heard Brett Kavanaugh talk put the clintons and how corrupt they were and how much he dislike and disrespected them, back during the starr hearings, and so im missing the great piece here. So, there was Brett Kavanaugh, clerking for starr, and there was me, working for in the Washington Post. Thats how we first started speaking to each other and in the course of researching the become and my terrific researcher isabelle is here, i ran across an email in the voluminous thousands and thousands of really boring pages from Brett Kavanaugh from his emails at the bush white house, and one of them turn out to be an email that mentioned me and it said Something Like this, it was march 52001, right after george w. Bush takes office, and it says, i got a call from ruth marcus at the Washington Post if havent talk to her or in other reports since i took this job but i did get to know her quite well during the starr investigation when i was assigned to brief her, and she is invite met to the white house Correspondents Dinner and is it okay if we go . Of course he said, im under in illusions about her motive here, parenthesises, buttering me up, but i think it would be good if i but let me know if we can go. I had almost no recollection of this moment. And i was in fact not intending to butter up Brett Kavanaugh. I had a theory of the case it was good idea if you did these things to invite people who would appreciate the invitation as opposed to people who would roll their eyes at be required to go to yet another white house courts dinner, and correspondents din and are so i presumed the get the okay because he went. I have to say i never could have imagined from that moment that he would end up where he was today, or that i would end up talking to you tonight about justice Brett Kavanaugh, but here i am and im really looking forward to answering your questions about him or the book or almost anything else but the book would be good. [applause] so come to the microphone if you would so people can hear your question. [inaudible question] my question is, do you a lot of allegations be it but the actual assault or things like devils triangle or drinking habits that Brett Kavanaugh actually consciously lies in his tonight. Do you believe he did and if so why or why not. So, i do not believe that Brett Kavanaugh consciously lied in his testimony about whether he assaulted Christine Blasey ford or did any of the other sexual allegations that arose. Think theres arguments to be made about sort of skirting around in the truth regarding what is the meaning of devils triangle or what was the meaning of the other ridiculous can you believe that were discussing people residents High School Year bock pages and dissecting them. The reason that i just to be absolutely clear issue do believe that Christine Blasey ford was telling the truth and i dont believe she had any motive to not tell the truth. She had every motive not to come forward. She was unable a woman who was unable to return to her house for three months after, until christmas. Didnt get back to her house until climbs eve. I turn her life upsidedown. She had mentioned the allegations she had in the memory of Brett Kavanaugh to her husband and other friends well before he was on his way to the Supreme Court, and the notion that some republicans suggested that she something terrible had happened to her, was the story they said, but she was simply mistaken who it was. That just makes zero sense to me. But that said, and perhaps im being naive, but not eye a naive person after all these years in california but from everything i could tell, from all the people i spoke with, who knew Brett Kavanaugh very, very well, i do not believe that he remembers this incident. My surmise, my assessment is that this was another drunken night for Brett Kavanaugh and another sort of ill use the word boisterous but a that downplay this significance and the harm of what he did, but he was messing around and misbehaving in a drunken way that night. He doesnt remember it because it wasnt a big deal to him. And Christine Blasey ford remembers it very vividly. Thats my long answer to your good question. Thank you. I want to said its become customary to sang service men and women for their service and i think since 2016 is some be customary to thank journalists for their service. [applause] my question is this. Its only since 2016 that ive actually taken note of the tag line on the post masthead, democracy dies in darkness. Has it been there for a long time or is that just first of all on the service thing, it is thank you but its one of those of thing that makes me in particular feel uncomfortable because all i do is sit in my office or sit at my kitchen counter and spout opinions the worst i have to endue is nasty tweets from the president and thats just fine with me. And so were informant you know, there are journalists who are in harms way and journalists who are scared when they good to trump rallies, and i think its really remarkable that people for the first time in our career are thanking us for what we doing and i completely appreciate that, but if the president has taught us one thing, its that the importance of journalism, not necessarily the opinion writing i do but the factbased reporting that my colleagues on the news side do. Dem address dies in darkness is jeff bezos innovation, its knew to the post. With the bezosing a acquisition of the post. I thought it was cheesy. I shouldnt say this. I thought it was cheeseey to start but now i really like it and guff my friends democracy ties in darkness onceys for their babies or grandchildren. How is it possible that buried in the middle of the front section was the story that President Trump, his forcing the Defense Department to give a 400 Million Contract to somebody he admired with theyd already been rejected because their bid was inadequate, hough does the post not put that on the front page . How people should feel about that and they put on these happy public soft stories. I cant speak to the decisions on that side but i would note that story was in the newspaper and on the website. I would rather answer questions about my own book than broader questions about the Washington Post. Your columns for years, i think he would feel the same way. It just doesnt make any sense for me to engage in second guessing about news decisions but thank you. And thank you for reading. After the kavanaugh nomination took place, i called senator harrisons office and suggested it might be of investigation to look at the relationship between kavanaugh and can star. That ended unhappily. You cover any of that in your book . I dont. Thats not something that came to my attention, its not something i looked into so maybe for the paperback. [laughter] can you explain what happened with the fbi investigation . Did senator coons get taken . That is a great question. The fbi investigation was something that was not going to happen. The white house and republican senator mcconnell and others, what they wanted to do was whatever it took to get judge kavanaughs across the finish line. Originally, the plan, i write about this in the book, was not to have a hearing at all. Senator grassley and mcconnell had a meeting with members of the Judiciary Committee and they said lets just have private interviews and Lindsay Graham said no, that wont fly. Jeff said no, so we got the hearing. Then senator flake was in the elevator after he told me it was the most sleepless night he spent in the senate he woke up in the morning deciding he was going to vote to confirm judge kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Senator coons to have an fbi investigation. It could happen quickly enough, kavanaugh could still be confirmed if nothing came up in plenty of time. So famously, despite all of his colleagues gathering around him trying to get him to change his mind and president was trying to reach him, judge kavanaugh, senator flake demanded an fbi investigation. He was backed up and that by senator collins in the votes were essential so i write in the book that behind the scenes, judge kavanaugh wanted an investigation. He was insisting no, dont do that. It will open a can of worms. We only need to warn about one thing. The Vice President could break the tie. When i decided to do the investigation, the question was, what could be of the investigation . There is an easy answer. Whatever senator Flake Collins insistent on. So they did insist that the fbi interview debbie the yale classmate of judge kavanaugh exposed himself to her when he was at yale. It would be very limited scope of the investigation and it was very carefully controlled, the white House Counsel in consultation with those key senators. To me, the most upsetting and appalling duty occurs when a m man, who privately told people that he had seen judge kavanaugh exposed himself being propelled toward another woman in another incident that was very provocative of the incident that deborah remembered. The woman he allegedly exposed himself to does not remember this incident, does not, was not quite inebriated at the time, apparently but just to be clear, she told friends she doesnt remember the incident. So this witness, the head of a Good Government group here in town, very well known, very good relations with key senators, tried to get his information to the fbi. Listed to former prosecutors with good relations to the fbi to try to get the fbi to take his information. It wasnt going to happen. Then he tried to reach out to collins. She doesnt remember him reaching out to her directly or indirectly. That didnt work. Then he went in desperation, he and senator collins, she served on the advisory committees. They work together. He went to coons and said i have this information, i cant get the fbi to pay attention. Senator coons wrote a letter to the fbi director. This is a letter from u. S. Senator but not just any senator, its a letter from one of the fbi directors classmates. The letter says please interview this one person. His name is max stier. The letter is cced to talk grassley and diane feinstein, the Ranking Member. Max stier is not interviewed. Then senator coons, desperate to get attention to this, starts to reach out to his colleagues. This is all in the course of days. The clock is ticking and fbi is producing and delivering its report. He reaches out to senator flake and says you need to talk to them and he says im dealing with Death Threats against my family. I cant deal with this. He reaches out, he tries to reach out and sends an email to senator alex. He doesnt hear back from her. Why not . It turns out senator collins emails have been widely disseminated in the middle of this mess so she changes her email. Senator coons, he sent a note saying hes my new email. Senator coons sent the email to colleges previous email. It is not until i called senator Collins Office a year later that they found this email. Senator collins, in an interview with me made it clear that it was by the time she heard about this, she would have gotten the email, it was too late in the game. She wasnt going to change her vote and she said well, the victim doesnt remember. How could we go forward . My answer would be, there are lots of unfortunate victims of Sexual Misconduct or Sexual Assault who cant remember what happened to them. What we needed to do was have an investigation that would get his testimony, talk to the woman, see what she did or didnt remember and figure out what happened so we could get some clarity. Clarity that might be useful for judge kavanaugh to avoid a block on his record. Clarity that might be useful for the senate to know precisely the background of the nominee that he was voting on. But the fbi investigation, i think it is so important. The investigation was not a hunt for the truth. It was a hunt for 50 votes and thats what they got. They got 51 in the end. Like your husband and many people here, i used to work in the senate. I thought senator feinstein made a grave error in not making an issue with senator grassley. Its a very partisan atmosphere, its still thought Senate Politics 101. Im wondering if you think it would have been different if this had been raised in an earlier time. A time when the senate worked . Earlier in the process. When you ask democrats about that, the senates Different Institution in the one you worked in. Senator grassley will tell you they would have taken it seriously, that he has a commitment and history of protecting whistleblowers so of course senator feinstein should have shared it with him. Democrats believe if senator feinstein had taken the information to senator grassley, it would have gone to the white house because they need to be involved in the fbi investigation that would look into this. It would have been immediately disseminated. I think its important and reasonable question but i would say is a middle ground for senator feinstein also because she got this information. It was very, very explosive. Christine blase ford had been discussing this with a number of her friends. Theres one lesson we learned from clarence thomas. Its that things come out. Things leaked. So i think some people disagree with me. I think it was almost inevitable that this would leak but i think for certain this was information that was to explosive for a single senator to make a decision on her own. About whether to share it or not. She was a difficult position because christine did not want to come forward, deserved to not be pushed forward unless she wanted to but her staff believed the summer she was eventually going to come forward. As difficult situation as she was in, she made a tragically wrong twice with not at least sharing the decision she made to keep the information to herself with her senate colleagues, the leadership and both on the committee and the leadership with the minority leader, chuck schumer. That was too much power and difficulty in dangerous information for one senator to make that decision on her own. Congratulations on the book. At the fbi done a thorough job, or what they have found . Thats a great question. We dont know. I dont know. Maybe they would have found there was no cooperation for any of these stories. Maybe they would have found if they had been able to follow, republicans im interrupting myself to say that republicans here would say the fbi, you are being naive and you dont understand the way the fbi works. This is not a criminal and a suggestion for the fbi is free to follow them wherever they may take them. This is correct, there is not a criminal investigation. In this circumstance, the fbi operates at the direction of its client which is the white house. So i believe the fbi director were standing here tonight, he would say did what we were told to do. I would say you have information you knew might be relevant and you didnt pursue it. I cant say where an investigation by the fbi with the authority it had, compelled to talk about fbi agents. They dont have subpoena power in that situation but nonetheless, when the agent knocks on your door, your little more inclined to talk to the fbi agents then the Washington Post reporter. It could have been exculpatory for Justice Kavanaugh, it could happen very dangerous. It would be interesting looking at his face when he was testifying when they kept saying why dont you want an investigation . The reality was, he kept saying he want one but he couldnt go against mcgann because don mcgann was key to keeping the support behind him to get him to the court. So, i dont know. Ten to leak in washington and since the hearings, there hasnt been much we could that reinforced christine said. Hasnt been an investigation either. I spent most of my time trying to figure out who Brett Kavanaugh was. What to understand about his biography that can help us understand what kind of justice he was. How he was chosen in one of the most interesting aspects of the whole process was the anxiety that social conservatives had about judge kavanaugh and whether he would be inserted enough. What happened behind the scenes as his confirmation proceeded and after her allegations came forward, i did try them and certainly others have tried to do more reporting but i would say fbi badge might be more persuasive. Next time. Congratulations. Thanks. Anybody else . Hi, owen. Thank you very much for your book. In the introduction, he said its a tough and fair evaluation of kavanaugh. Would you summarize . Thank you for asking fact. I am an opinion writer. I had an opinion in the end about Justice Kavanaugh should have been confirmed as i was writing the book, i wanted to go back to my roots in which i spent most of my career in the Washington Post as a reporter and i really believe as a reporter, what you do is you provide people with enough facts to make decisions on their own. Throughout the writing process, i was having this old with my editor who text saying well, people are going to want to know what marcus thinks. I kept saying, cant i just tell them what happened . And she kept rolling her eyes at me, over the phone i could hear her eyes rolling. So i spent the month of august in wyoming with my family finishing the writing of the book in 19 we were out to dinner with our daughters. I said, do you think i should write about what i think happened . They rolled their eyes. Are you kidding . Yes, of course. So like every good mother, i listened to my daughters and i thought of course it was reasonable. At the end of the book, i have a chapter called failed to win which i called final thoughts. After the epilogue, it basically says okay, you have stuck with this all along. Heres what i actually think. What i actually think is very propagated. I was really surprised Brett Kavanaugh was not on trumps original list to be on the Supreme Court. I was relieved when he got on because i thought he was a standard runofthemill republican nominee, elections have consequences, hes a true conservative but he wasnt as extreme conservative as i thought other people might have been. So when he was selected, i was in some ways relieved it wasnt somebody more extreme that President Trump selected. He selected the nominee who would have been the nominee of president bush or rubio. When christine allegations came up, i thought this is really serious. I thought it needed a really serious investigation. I concluded, at the time, from everything i saw that her story was more credible than his denial. Her story what happened was the credible story. What i thought was in a situation like that, the truth cant absolutely be known, both of the ways we talked about this, like it was a job interview, it was not fair to him because this was a excruciating job interview. But then also, he wasnt entitled to the presumption of innocence, its not particularly persuasive in the confirmation hearing. I thought the benefit of the doubt in that situation should be given to the court where you didnt know if you were confirming somebody who had engaged in this behavior. Then for me, the part that made easiest was the testimony itself. His contemporaries outburst, which was some people heard it but susans comment on it and said anybody whos falsely accused what understandably lash out like that. I dont think so. Thats not what judges do. Senator had a good line who said we cant have that on the court. We can have behavior like that on the court. I thought that pushed things for me over the edge and made it much easier to conclude that the senate should not have voted to confirm him. Thats the lengthy answer i inflicted on the kids at that dinner in wyoming. A couple times youve reticent reference the concern over whether he would be conservative enough. Got me to thinking about the republik and nominated republicans, do not be disappointed. Based on what you found out about kavanaugh, the think theres any chance to be less conservative than conservatives would like him to be . I think theres a chance he will beat earl warren. [laughter] and zero chance he will be there. I think in the spectrum of conservatism, it is entirely possible in a world where some conservatives think of chief justice as a terrible squishy turncoat for having voted a few times to uphold things like the Affordable Care act, and this is the evidence of Brett Kavanaughs first term in the alignment from super ultra conservative to just really serious conservative. Brett kavanaugh is apt to align himself closer to chief Justice Robert and i was going to say more liberal but thats not accurate. Less conservative than justice for such. Thats how i see it coming out. I think we have maybe time for one more quick question if somebody has one. Follow up on the last question. Do you think his experience in the hearings will affect him as a judge . If so, how . Fantastic ending question. Justice thomas was always going to be a conservative justice but i think the experience of the confirmation hearing for him really embittered him and drove him very much in conservative corner. Justice kavanaugh has told friends, without necessarily mentioning the episode, but hes very mindful of the desire to be the same kind of justice he would have been none of this happened. Hes a different kind of person then Justice Thomas. He enjoyed teaching at harvard law school. He enjoyed going to yale. Justice thomas never wanted to have anything to do with dale. He put a 10cent sticker on his diploma. I think judge kavanaugh was very much like, though its very difficult, to be welcomed back into the establishment and if not, admired allie smart accepted that he is in some quarters now. I think the likelihood is more at this experience could leave him in certain circumstances to find ways to ingratiate some of himself, to find cases that might not be the most divisive cases but kind of easy votes to sort of make some amends with those who opposed him. I think this coming Supreme Court will be one of the most interesting Supreme Court terms in history so stay tuned. Thank you all so much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] heres a look at some of the most notable books of the 2019 according to amazon. A history of september 11, 2001 through over 500 interviews with those directly affected by the offense of the day and the only plane in the sky. Journalist Stephanie Lynn reports on the working poor. In dreams of el dorado, historian h. W. Brands traces the settling of the american west. Casey recounts harper lees attempt to write a true crime book in furious hours. In super pump, New York Times Technology Correspondent mike isaac examines the rise of uber. I think its really about the state of tech right now and where we are with technology coverage, with how we view tech impacts on the world. Probably from late 90s through up until a few years ago, tech coverage, tech reporting was largely revering the young founders and hoodies that are coding the next billiondollar app. This mythology around youtube, theres a very popular story to tell. I really think its changed, i think that narrative has changed a lot and we are starting to see some of the dark side of how tech can operate. Uber and people getting assaulted or murdered in their vehicles or in the nucleation of information on facebook and twitter and social network and i think its worth exploring the secondary effects that are not positive. All these authors have appeared on bookkeeping and you can find their programs in their entirety booktv. Org. Type the authors name in the search barr at the top of the page. This sunday, book tv features three new nonfiction books. At 2 00 p. M. Eastern, harvard diversity law professor alan offers his thoughts on how Sexual Misconduct accusations should be handled. In his book, guilt by accusations. I dont want to go away, i want to disprove it. So i wrote the book and i have all the documents. I have the narrative she wrote, i have the emails she tried to suppress have the capabilities of lawyers. Theres nobody reading this book and can come away with any doubt whatsoever that this woman made up the story completely. Out of her own mouth, i never met her. At 7 15 p. M. Eastern, in her latest book, the truth will set you free but first, it will pass you off. She chronicles her life and career, collection of essays and notable essays. To see what came before, now the me too movement, thanks to all of this and thanks to technology and the web is now all over the world. Its a process and now its a majority consciousness. 9 00 p. M. Eastern on afterwards, university of Maryland County president on his book, the empowered university. Hes interviewed by author and antipoverty firm robin hood ceo westmore. People should he the kill tuesday ask the question that can lead to the evidence that can determine what is truth