in the research and drafting of judicial opinions. They work closely with their judge, almost as apprentices, and it’s not unusual for them to form lifelong bonds. Clerkships are like being adopted into a large extended family with one patriarch or matriarch at the head. Some of Kavanaugh’s former clerks took leave from their jobs or did double duty to participate in the effort to secure his nomination. Roman Martinez, a former clerk turned Supreme Court litigator, was abroad on a family vacation and worked remotely and across five time zones. The same day the vacancy was announced, Travis Lenkner, who had also clerked for Justice Kennedy, packed his bags and hopped on a plane from Chicago, texting the judge that he was on his way to help.
Kavanaugh’s chambers in the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse on Constitution Avenue, near the Capitol, comprised a few offices for the judge and his staff and a small conference room. This became the cramped headquarters of the Kavanaugh “campaign.” Being in Washington was a huge advantage, but with spotty cell phone and internet service and no televisions, the offices themselves made a poor communications nerve center. The air-conditioning was shut off at six p.m., leaving the offices stiflingly hot in the D.C. summer evenings. And because the volunteers were not employees of the court, none of them had badged access to the courthouse. The judge’s capable executive assistant, Eva Roney, had to stay there as late as they did. Apart from the difficulty of getting in and out of the building, the neighborhood had few restaurants open in the evening, so even getting dinner was a big production.
Beyond the team of former clerks working in chambers were dozens volunteering as they could from across the country. One collected news clips and tweets from prominent figures, arranging them into what needed to be seen immediately, hourly, and daily and then distributing them to the team, a contribution that was essential for responding to critiques from fellow conservatives.
Some former clerks, hoping that their judge would be added to the White House list and confident that he would be a leading contender, had begun preparing for a Supreme Court vacancy at least a year earlier. That work, which accelerated as the 2017–2018 term drew to an end, included reading through Kavanaugh’s hundreds of opinions, sorting them by topic—gun rights, free speech, search and seizure, the administrative state, and so on—and preparing excerpts from significant cases, contextualizing them for their importance. These were invaluable aids for surrogates talking about Kavanaugh in the media.
The Kavanaugh team emphasized his influence on the court, noting his skill at strategically framing an opinion to convince other judges on the same case to take a more conservative position than they might otherwise have done. It was important that his persuasive techniques be appreciated for their effectiveness rather than misunderstood as a sign of weak convictions. They also wanted to make sure people remembered Kavanaugh’s long record of public service prior to being a judge. He had taken on a politically risky role in the independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s “Whitewater” investigation of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s Arkansas land deals. And he had served with distinction in the frequently besieged Bush White House. Unlike some lawyers angling for judicial office, he had not built his career by avoiding conflict and keeping his powder dry. Brett Kavanaugh was not timid.
The former clerks spoke privately with persons of influence and lobbied publicly as well. Sarah Pitlyk, a litigator on issues of life and religious liberty, responded to criticisms about Kavanaugh’s jurisprudence by writing, “On the vital issues of protecting religious liberty and enforcing restrictions on abortion, no court-of-appeals judge in the nation has a stronger, more consistent record than Judge Brett Kavanaugh. On these issues, as on so many others, he has fought for his principles and stood firm against pressure. He would do the same on the Supreme Court.”22
Sometimes the criticism of Kavanaugh baffled them. The day after Kennedy’s retirement, the popular conservative pundit Ben Shapiro, himself a lawyer, had written that he “has the most red flags” of the top five contenders, suggesting that Kavanaugh—who was particularly well known for his critiques of bureaucratic overreach—supported “the notion that administrative agencies ought to be granted deference by the judicial branch.”23 The former clerks found people who could talk to Shapiro and pass along an effective response, and he corrected the error.24
As hard as his former clerks and the White House were working, nobody was working