appearance before congress. >> former special counsel robert onller is said to appear wednesday, july 17 at 9:00 a.m. eastern. he gives testimony to the house judiciary committee and later in the day he will take questions from the house intelligence committee, both open sessions. the report into russian interference in the 2016 election will air live on c-span three and c-span.org or listen with the free c-span radio app. >> this is mike davis, he is the founder and president of the article three project here to talk about his role and his organization's role when it comes to the judiciary and nominations from the trump administration. good morning. what was the genesis of the project? caller: i was working on the senate judiciary committee for chairman grassley last congress, and we were hoping the president that helping the president set

records on the number of federal judges that the president was appointing. i was not ready to hang up my gloves. i think it's too important for the country. so we started the artile iii project to help the president continue that fight from the outside. host: why does he need help from an outside group? caller: it such an important -- guest: it is such an important issue and i think the left is gearing up and fighting back, there are groups like demand justice, aligns for justice, other groups that are -- alliance for justice, other groups that are fighting the president on his judicial nominations at every step. i think it's important to have people out there in the judicial fight. host: is the highlight specifically from the nomination of the supreme court justices or all levels? guest: to all levels. we will be ready for the next supreme court nomination,

whenever that happens, and we are helping with the judicial fight at every level. records.dent has set we are at 41 federal circuit judges appointed under president trump. that's the most ever for a president. ,e has appointed 125 judges with justices gorsuch and cavanaugh. another 40 going through the confirmation pipeline at various stages in the process. that's 165. i would like to see the president appoint at least 200 federal judges by the end of his first term. host: i suppose someone would say that it seems like he is doing ok on his own. guest: maybe. he's doing a phenomenal job. hopefully we don't have to fight too hard the artile iii project. is, of what we are doing

you are seeing unprecedented attacks from the left on the nomination process. we want to protect the nominees as they go through the process and make the positive case as they go through, defending these nominees as they are attacked. something that's not happening is that once the judges go to the bench, they really can't fight back. they are sitting ducks. we want to help defend these judges and justices once they're on the bench. we've done that with justice cavanaugh, he's teaching a law course at george mason. other groups have gone after him andhave spent up undergrads faculty members. they are feigning fear that the justice is teaching the course at mason university. but what they are failing to tell people is that he is teaching this course 3600 miles away in england. so the undergrads and faculty

members at the northern virginia campus can come out of their safe space, knowing that the justice will not get them. host: when it comes to the process of the attacks, what did you learn, or what were the lessons learned from your organization and you personally from the cavanaugh process? guest: it was an ugly process. will sink is the left deaths in order to go after a supreme court nominee. thought his people confirmation process was ugly, just wait until the next one. bloodbath on be a the next nomination. the artile iii project will be ready. host: he still got on the court. guest: he did. peoplefortunate that like justice cavanaugh, who has

been a sitting federal circuit judge for 12 years on the second highest court of the land has seven background investigations by the fbi, they interviewed over 150 people, he clearly had the character and fitness to serve, and suddenly last-minute allegations come in and he is accused of serial gang rape. me, thating to apparently he ran this ring, and the fbi speaking to 150 people could not get a with of this. it's garbage. it's ugly. and it's really unfair to good americans who want to serve. host: and you were personally involved in the nomination process of gust -- of the justices. guest: i was. i worked for the bush 43 administration, that's how i got

to know neil gorsuch, and i clicked for him on the 10th circuit back in 2006 and 2007. i helped him from the outside, because i had experience with a nominations process with the chief justice and justice alito and other justices. so i helped justice gorsuch from the outside and then i went to work for chuck grassley, from iowa. he was the chairman of the senate judiciary committee and i was fortunate enough to work with him. i opened his mail out of college back in 2001 before joining the bush 43 administration. i was fortunate enough to go back and serve under chairman grassley's leadership. i was the chief counsel for nominations and i help senator grassley and others with confirmations. is mike davis, you can ask him questions about the judicial nominations, and the concerns he has, you can give us

a call for democrats (202) 748-8000, for republicans (202) 748-8001, for independents (202) 748-8002. how was your project funded? guest: we take donations from ,ther 501(c) four organizations you can also had to our website and make donations. we are funded from various sources. host: are these coming from conservative organizations? guest: we get funding from conservative organizations and all sources. we are trying to be lean and mean. we are trying to spend money conservatively. you don't need to spend a lot of money to do this. host: you were just formed in may. guest: april or may. i don't -- recall exactly when

the lawyers filed the paperwork but it was a few months ago. host: as far as going forward, what's the strategy? guest: we have already been doing it. you can follow us on twitter at artile iii project on twitter. we want to take our experience working on judicial nominations from the white house and the justice department and the nominees perspective with justice gorsuch and our time serving with chairman grassley, and we have a good understanding of how the process works. being able to make a positive case for the nominees, respond to the attacks on the nominees. defend sitting judges when they are attacked from left-wing groups, and we are trying to defend the process. we have a good understanding of how the process works. takerats are trying to away this victory from president trump by saying the process is rigged. which it isn't. we have a good understanding of how the process works. and how it has worked

historically. want to fight back against what i call the assault on judicial independence. the left is losing badly on the judicial fight. attack are trying to judicial independence, pushing schemes like court packing which was discarded many years ago. it was to pack the supreme court with liberal justices, they are looking at impeaching justice cavanaugh, which is frankly crazy. and term limits, which are unconstitutional. at the artile iii project we want to punch back against attacks on nominees, sitting judges, and the process. you can find their website online. we have john on the democrats line. go ahead. caller: hello.

thank you for taking my call. my comment is that we must not do as -- wenees must not let the president do as he wishes, and his nominees are not welcome. this gentleman is doing -- he has madean our country worse. and another thing that i wanted to mention is that -- host: before you go far, specifically, when it comes to nominees from the president, what are your concerns? -- another thing i wanted to mention -- are: as far as nominations concerned, what do you want our guest to address? my concern is the president, because he's escalating tensions between iran and the united states. host: we will leave it there and go on to mark, on the

independent line. happy: thanks pedro, fourth of july. "we", who, who is is the artile iii project? we have volunteer lawyers and law students from around the country. and i run the project with volunteers. caller: out of curiosity, don't you think that there should be some cross-examination to dish -- judicial nominations? would you nominate warren more to be a judge? -- roy moore to be a judge? guest: know. and as per cross-examination we s,ve nomination hearing democrats and republicans have equal time and opportunity to question his nominees.

-- the nominees. they happen every other wednesday, chairman grassley had 30 nominations and hearings our last -- in the last congress. and chairman lindsey graham has already had 10. there are plenty of opportunities to question the nominees publicly. host: from pennsylvania on the republican line, sally. caller: hello mr. davis. if we want to stop the divisiveness in this nation, and be truly fair, there should be the american bar association providing a list. of the speaker, the leader each party, should put in three names in a hat, or a shell game, take it out on the mall, and with an audience, pick a three-year-old toddler to pick a name out. because the public could handle

nomination by chance, far better, than this partisan way we are doing. we cannot continue to have half this country extremely unhappy. thank you. shape that sally. that's not how the constitution works. it gives the power to the president to nominate, the senate the power to confirm, and it's an interesting argument. i don't know if i would turn over the appointment process to an outside organization like the american bar association. they have an important role in the process and evaluating the nominees but i would not give an outside group power to pick judges. i would give it to elected representatives. president even said here's a list of judges i will pick, they were picked by outside sources, are you ok with that process? trump candidate donald campaign on the fact that he was going to rely on the federal

society and the heritage foundation to come up with of supreme court nominees. the president made that list public. he publicly campaigned on it and the american people elected him. it was a surprise victory for the president, in large part i think it was because of the way he was going to handle the judicial selection process. host: so advising by outside groups you are ok with that. guest: the president is not bound by outside groups. leaders in theey conservative movements like the federal society and the heritage foundation, they have been doing this for a long time. leonard is a good man and i consider him the god model -- the godfather of the conservative judicial movement. he has been doing this a long time and he has helped the president pick good judges, including justice gorsuch and

justice cavanaugh and 41 circuit judges so far. two other judges on the court of federal claims. they are doing a good job. host: what about the performance of the justices? guest: i am biased justice gorsuch because i clerked for him. he's doing phenomenal and so is justice cavanaugh. if you look at the end of the first term they came through -- the present campaigned on appointing justices who interpret and follow the law as written, and not how they wish it were written. they are judges, not senators. if you look at how justice gorsuch and justice cavanaugh did this last term, the president delivered on his campaign promise. they disagreed on several cases, but the disagreement was about a matter of law. it was not a policy outcome or political outcome. that's not how judges are supposed to operate and what we saw with justice gorsuch and

justice cavanaugh. host: one of the highlights from this past term, highlighted by bloomberg is when it comes to siding withuch on liberals on four occasions, is that concern you? guest: no one would accuse justice gorsuch of being a liberal, he looks at the law. that's what judges and justices are supposed to do. you have colors talking about how they -- callers talking about how they wish justices were not political. they follow the law, they have a judicial philosophy. there's originally some verses intentionalism. you look at what the law said and meant at the time of its enactment and there is an answer. if judges follow that judicial philosophy it depoliticize is the process, making it about the

law and how the american people understand that law. it far less likely that judges can put their personal views into their opinions. read i have get you live to where senator kamala harris is about to start a tone -- town hall live coverage on c-span. >> the first african-american and first woman to serve as california's attorney general. she was also elected twice as district attorney of san francisco. shehen kamala harris runs is in it to when it. -- win it. electrifying is an force. we all have seen that. she has