personal knowledge of the authors, acquired through their work during the Kavanaugh confirmation process and with the conservative legal movement. Carrie Severino, the leader of the Judicial Crisis Network, was deeply involved with the promotion of Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation from the time of his nomination. She is a Harvard Law School graduate who clerked at the Supreme Court. Mollie Hemingway is a senior editor of The Federalist, a web magazine that covers politics, policy, and culture, and a contributor to Fox News. Through their work, they became closely acquainted with key players and their views as well as with important themes and events that have not been previously reported.
The book arose out of a desire by participants in these extraordinary events to tell their stories to writers who had not joined in the media’s public opposition to Justice Kavanaugh’s appointment. While both authors admit to a right-of-center perspective, they have endeavored to produce an objective account that reflects a respect for the rule of law and the presumption of innocence.
Acknowledgments
This book would not have been possible without the help and support of many people. We apologize in advance for any we have unintentionally omitted.
Tom Spence has been a major blessing on this project. He has performed the literary equivalent of making a house into a home. He wove our 110,000-word manuscript into a cohesive story. And he did so under the tightest of deadlines and with constant “breaking news” being added to the manuscript even in the final hours of editing.
We are grateful that Marji Ross and Regnery Publishing were willing to take on this whirlwind of a project. Nobody else could have taken us from a signed contract in January to a finished product in July, and we are indebted to them for their trust in us and this project.
Our interns were another major stroke of providence. Hillsdale College’s Kirby Center provided us five thorough, enterprising, and reliable assistants at various points in the writing. Kristyna Skurk and Solomon Chen put in long hours checking and correcting our endnotes and researching the more obscure corners of Supreme Court history. The budding journalist Alexis Nester was intrepid in tracking down and interviewing sources. And Hanna Thullen and Jackson Frerichs assisted in straightening out our timeline of events.
Thank you to our many sources for their generosity with their time and stories, for their patience in explaining to us everything from the intricacies of Senate rules to the conventions of suburban Maryland high school culture. We are grateful to President Trump for the time he afforded us to discuss judicial selection. Thank you to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley for their generosity with their time. We would also like to thank John Abegg, Randy Barnett, Shari Berger, Robert Bork Jr., Jonathan Bunch, Justin Clark, Marjorie Dannenfelser, Mike Davis, Doreen Denny, Julie DeVol, Mario Diaz, Annie Donaldson, Antonia Ferrier, Sara Field, Taylor Foy, George Hartmann, Laura Kaplan, Kerri Kupec, Leonard Leo, Ted Lehman, John Malcolm, Jenny Beth Martin, Gary Marx, Attorney General Ed Meese, Rachel Mitchell, Patricia Miles, Penny Nance, Vice President Mike Pence, Sarah Pitlyk, Mallory Quigley, Ralph Reed, Annabelle Rutledge, Raj Shah, Janae Stracke, Brett Talley, Garrett Ventry, and Helgi Walker.
Carrie Severino
I never planned to write a book. When people close to the Kavanaugh confirmation shared with me their concerns that the books being written on the topic would be biased, I hoped that a respected and principled journalist like Mollie would agree to write the true story. But when Mollie called me, saying she would do it only if I agreed to be a co-author, her partnership gave me the confidence to take on a project that felt totally beyond me. In truth, it still does. Looking back on how many persons we were able to interview and how much information we were able to amass in a mere four months, I’m still not sure how we managed it.
To write a book is one thing, but to co-author a book as involved as this one was daunting in a different way. Would we hate each other by the time the manuscript was finished? How could we split up the work so that neither of us, with her many other obligations, felt unfairly overburdened? It is amazing that we have emerged from that pressure-cooker not only without mutual animosity but as stronger friends and partners. After spending nearly a decade on the other side of the microphone, I have received an intensive apprenticeship in journalism