Justice on Trial

The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court

By: Mollie Hemingway, Carrie Severino

Narrated by: Mollie Hemingway, Carrie Severino

Justice Anthony Kennedy slipped out of the Supreme Court building on June 27, 2018, and traveled incognito to the White House to inform President Donald Trump that he was retiring, setting in motion a political process that his successor, Brett Kavanaugh, would denounce three months later as a "national disgrace" and a "circus."

Justice on Trial, the definitive insider's account of Kavanaugh's appointment to the Supreme Court, is based on extraordinary access to more than one hundred key figures--including the president, justices, and senators--in that ferocious political drama.

The Trump presidency opened with the appointment of Neil Gorsuch to succeed the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. But the following year, when Trump drew from the same list of candidates for his nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, the justice being replaced was the swing vote on abortion, and all hell broke loose.

The judicial confirmation process, on the point of breakdown for thirty years, now proved utterly dysfunctional. Unverified accusations of sexual assault became weapons in a ruthless campaign of personal destruction, culminating in the melodramatic hearings in which Kavanaugh's impassioned defense resuscitated a nomination that seemed beyond saving.

The Supreme Court has become the arbiter of our nation's most vexing and divisive disputes. With the stakes of each vacancy incalculably high, the incentive to destroy a nominee is nearly irresistible. The next time a nomination promises to change the balance of the Court, Hemingway and Severino warn, the confirmation fight will be even uglier than Kavanaugh's.

A good person might accept that nomination in the naïve belief that what happened to Kavanaugh won't happen to him because he is a good person. But it can happen, it does happen, and it just happened. The question is whether America will let it happen again.

Mollie Doing What Mollie Does

Aka constructing a heretofore unknown timeline, replete with heretofore unknown/unreported facts, written (and narrated!) in the coldly objective yet warmly familiar prose that she's known and loved for.

Don't know much about Ms. Severino, but it's clear from the (alternating) chapters she narrates that she's reading her own written material, of which she has complete and total command.

11.5 hours or so in audible version, I purchased on the afternoon of July 10th and I finished this morning (13th).

Excellent work from both ladies!

Outstanding Account of a Sad Event

I hesitated to purchase this book since I had followed the story so closely in the news, but I clearly missed some key details and background. It's sad to see the country heading in this direction but, as the authors suggest in the last chapter, if Ginsberg retires or dies, the Kavanaugh ordeal will probably seem like a cakewalk.
Molly Hemingway has done some outstanding reporting in the past and her talent as an author is clearly on the same high level.

A book to help correct the biased media record

The book was well researched and provided the counterpoint to the blatantly biased media stories about Justice Kavanaugh. It recounts the history of how the vacancy occurred, the mobilization of opposition forces within moments of the vacancy announcement and shortly after Kavanaugh’s nomination, and the disgusting extent some will go to ensure a corruption continues with outside special interest groups leading the charge. It goes to show the media is a profit-making venture more interested in selling a sensational story for ratings rather than telling the truth. I really enjoyed hearing the personal details about Kavanaugh’s family and definitely felt compassion for his wife and daughters. After witnessing the absurdities and vexing moments recounted in the book, I hope America rethinks the confirmation process to endure good and honorable people are not scared away from public service. Thank you to the authors for doing a marvelous job on telling a more complete story of the Kavanaugh confirmation fight.

Insightful and Honest

I am not a person who would normally pick up a non-fiction book to read it, nor am I deeply interested in all things Washington D.C. but I couldn't put this book down. Thank you the detailed account of what was REALLY happening here. Very interesting account of the facts most media outlets deliberately avoided disclosing. Scary just how easy it is for a story to be spun into something it isn't. Very thorough investigating.

Wow... I initially listened to the Kavanaugh

I initially listened to the Kavanaugh story on MSNBC and Fox news. They had different perspectives glad to have read this book. ALL the facts we're presented and done so from an historical perspective.