arrested and charged with transporting a fetus to new york, removal of human remains from the place of death, an improper disposal of a fetus. it was a crazy gruesome bit of a theater that grabbed public attention. but 30 years later, one of those reverence, robert shank, is still making headlines. earlier this month, reverend schenck told the new york times that as head of an evangelical group he was behind a wine and dine s game to gain access conservative supreme court justices in at an effort to advance abortion interests. the goal he said at the time, was to embolden the justice, to lay the legal groundwork for an eventual reversal of roe v. wade by delivering unapologetically conservative dissent. basically to target the justices and social settings as a way of convincing them to take fairly unprecedented and broadly unpopular positions, and this case, checking down roe. now whether reverend schenck s scheme worked, we don t know, but this is how he did it: what
online. but as of chief justice roberts, justice of antonin scalia low. and then there is that particular one with justice carlito inside alito s chambers. the rights of the leaders were in the right donations to the supreme court historical society. a nonprofit organization that was apparently used by shank as a vehicle to gain access to the supreme court. and that access came with instructions. mr. schenck gave his stealth missionaries close instruction and justices were more likely to let their guard down at the historical society annual dinners because they assumed attendees had been properly batted. this was a well planned, well financed strategy to gain access to some of the most powerful people in america. shank understood that understanding politicians could be kicked out of office, or lose the election, but supreme court justices, they had a lifetime tenure. and a man, was a strategy affective! shenk says that when he was told to now casually as that they in
we would attempt to do is match couples, our couples, to justice couples, so kind of feel a personality types, interests, age, station and life and so forth and and try our best to be matchmakers. try to pair up couples where we thought there was a good prospect for a meaningful friendship to develop, and this particular couple really had an innate capacity for understanding human behavior, what bothered those justice couples they interacted with what their needs were, and they responded to those needs. that couple he s talking about here is donald and gayle right. the shanks scheme, the rights apparently became close friends with justice alito and his wife. they got access to other justices as well, in fact when donald wright died in 2020, his family posted these pictures
donors, the vacation homes, we are talking about special invitations offered by justices on the supreme court to these wealthy donors. i mean the back and forth between this group of basically wealthy activist, and supreme court justices, during moments and where the supreme court is here in cases in derek really influencing them and part of their sort of ideological crusade. i mean, it s just such a shocking breach of ethics that the justices have to understand how just destructed that is to the legacy of the court. so it s not even that. it s not something that these people are wealthy and they have access, but for most ordinary americans, the work of the quite was incredibly inaccessible instilled a pandemic when the courts began live streaming audio of all arguments. otherwise, just go down, there it s a waiting line to get in, unless you knew the justices right. and they would give you the seats, no one has this kind of access to the court. the east donors did, and that is
podcast a must close sense, strict scrutiny and msnbc legal analyst. it s great to see you, thank you for coming on the show! thanks for having me. this is a lot to sow why this isn t headline news like across the country and it is shocking, and it is unacceptable if you believe in the independence of the judiciary. how can this be going on? well that is the question, and everyone has been talking about the reported lake and liberals versus hobby lobby decision, but that s not really the story. that is burying the lead. the real story is this coordinated highly finance campaign to get access to these justices naturally they were successful. they got access to some of the most conservative justices, and we don t know if it shaped the outcome in any decision, but we do know that they had unprecedented access. does not just reporting in the new york times, there was also reporting earlier this year in rolling stone and politico that talked about these individuals going to chambe