of justice scalia, leaned over the bench in the way he had and said wait! weight! weight! weight! weight! four times. i also say i once told the story --ut i did tell him but e way i remembered it in my head, he said no, no, no, no. it turned out i had told it wrong and somebody corrected me. it was really wait, wait, wait, wait. he had some objection to my first sentence which was something about the history of campaign-finance. i've thought he did me a great favor because he just got me into the argument right away, that it wasn't like i was making a speech, okay, what's the next sentence i'm supposed to say. just having a conversation or having an argument as the case may be. i found it to be pretty fun. >> i found he could be a good foil because you knew where he was coming from and capture the point and say we understand what you are saying. >> he was also good about -- doesn't change the way i am a judge. i would say he was good this way, he would come at you very hard and tell you exactly what he thought was wrong with your argument but then he would

what i sometimes sit about justice scalia is sometimes justice scalia and i give you a little bit ofa shock. sometimes we were on different sides of the mission. you were on different sides list often but what we think about this argument is an extremely helpful thing to have like okay if i know what they are going to try to pick a part in his argument then you figure out how to make it stronger what is he going to say about this. what is he going to admit is good and what's he going to think. i know firsthand he has tremendous respect for you why are we talking about justice scalia is because i know experiencerom that staying in touch with him [inaudible] [laughter] >> you are the one. the thing i think some people in the audiencen might assume, lawyers or not, is people that disagree about the meaning of the constitution might have a hard a time having close friendship and maybe you could explain how that works. i also just like ten enormously and we were good friends. i found him extremely generous, funny, warm, which isn't necessarily something thath you get when you read his opi

it's like justice scalia, someone thate cares about reasoning.s notso enough just to have n like.e that you i think it is terrific. >> are you one of the three people in the world that has read that? >> we have two copies i think a lot of people have read it. it is really good. i don't think you've written about that. i don't think you've written about the exclusionary rule. you've got to do that. so we have as you know -- >> [inaudible] >> i wanted to be of course a professional athlete. a schoolteacher. i did that for aho while. then i went to solve the middle east crisis. >> where were you born? >> saudi arabia. >> why were you born in saudi arabia? >> my father was born in jerusalem. we are losing track of the point of this interview. [laughter] but he was born to missionary parents and grewus up in the middle east as well, so i always thought i would go there and fix the palestinian israeli crisis. >> that wouldal have been harder than what you do now. >> sadly, still there. so we have a bunch of supreme court fellows and younger lawyers and

with of justice scalia. it would be the last thing i would say, that's really terrible. i've been known to be a little bit. >> not put it in those terms that i would say justice leah had courage to center. >> the year he wrote that defense, extraordinary. the constitutionality and everybody else, it was just a different time and a different view of the law and different experiences the country had the ability to of course this is constitutional he was like nobody else thought i was crazy and it turns out to be one of the greatest of all times and not just in terms of the way it's written a lot of questions about the difficulties and what about. not necessarily to say he was right but an extremely effective way and it shows you how time can give a different perspective because like everybody what is he doing and why is he doing this? >> in his writings that would be periodically. being of royalty, clerked for justice marshall, this incredible gift that was in a different time, what was it like. >> justice mar

you know, as i said, justice scalia, 98 to 0. justice ginsburg something close to that, maybe 96 to 3, something like that. and that was always the philosophy i brought to when i thought about confirmation and so on. elena kagan i was her deputy solicitor general when she was nominated. i was aghast at senate republicans who said she wasn't qualified. i mean, first woman solicitor general, first woman d.a. and of harvard law school, brilliant scholar, just, you know, just phenomenal on every level to say she wasn't qualified. it hurt me. so to hear that and then i saw the games played justice scalia's unfortunate passing with the merrick garland nomination. and that, you know, broke my heart. and when president trump, in his first week or two, nominated neil gorsuch to the court, i looked into my heart and i said, look, you know, he's not the person i would recommend by any stretch. you know, he's not going vote on things that i would. but if i apply the yardstick of is this person qualified, that person was qualified to be on th

then all of a sudden justice scalia's dissent starts to look a little better. i tried to instill that in the same way in arguing these cases. you that is what you try to do. you try to say, well, this case might look like it benefits the republicans in this case, but there is a principal here. sometimes, that is really hard, because it is some phenomenon in the world that does not assent to the two parties the same way. democratic voters, for a lot of understandable reasons, tended to aggregate themselves in urban areas. this creates a different dynamic in a gerrymandering case from republican voters who tended to distribute themselves a little more evenly across the argosy of state. there is some of that -- across geography of state. there are some of that you cannot get out of the issue, but you try to the degree that you can. to your question, linda, about the court's perspective on this and is it different due to the current composition of the court? i think the court is very aware of this. i think they are aware -- thank goodness for just a steven sund jus

the scalia trick was to arrange for the owner of a private resort to invite justice scalia on a free vacation and then to fail to disclose the vacation on the theory that the free vacation gifted by the owner of the resort who he may never have met, was a personal invitation and as a personal invitation it's personal hospitality and need not be disclosed. we believe he took over 60 of these prearranged vacations. the judicial conference took a look at that and it to smithereens because theyy know perfectly well that would never fly in any circuit court or any district court in the country. the second victory for transparency and integrity there, if you go back to my description of how the court captures scheme worked it involves communicating to the justices what was that the billionaire interest wants through these flotillas oror frt groups and a tease who would then not disclose who is behind them. on one occasion a brief was filed by an entity which is not even a real corporate entity. it was the fictitious name of the virginia corporate law for a separate corporate entity under w

to paraphrase justice scalia, structure is everything.le like to talk about the bill of rights too, so let me move on. you know, i've already talked about the third briefly, so i'll focus on the first and second amendments. the court in this term had a number, by my count five, of consequential cases about the first amendment as it applies to social media. and this is somewhat interesting because last term i think a lot of people thought, okay, last term was going to be the term where the social media cases -- because, you know, everybody kind of dislikes social media for a different reason. so these cases are perk iflating throughout the system.. -- percolating. and it seemed like maybe last term was the term where the court was going to get its hands around this. it had an important issue about the section 2390-- 230, fending off lots of civil litigation. but that kind -- case kind of fizz ifinged, and the court didn't definitively reach it. turns out this is the term where social media really comes to the supreme court. and as i say, i

and you know, the scalia vote, it's so interesting how that has evolved. in the senate. because the theory was the president gets the supreme court justices they want. chuck schumer who was a judiciary committee member made a big thoughtful speech around the bush presidency, 2005 or so saying i think we might want to start to consider what these judges actually think. like maybe we should vote on that basis as opposed to just rubber stamping them to where we all are today. and joe biden moving to where we are today on supreme court reform is is such an important endorsement for someone that will surely end up being carried out by the harris administration because you will need more democrats in the senate to do it. in part of lindsey graham's secret life, he respects joe biden as a united states senator and his view of the supreme court. and all of the principles that joe biden has historically applied to the supreme court. >> you mentioned, when i think about all the people that have so much riding on how the speech went. the most expert person in that. how did you feel

they gave rise to the great scalia-ginsberg opera and much more.nd justice ginsburg did have that great movie made after her, so maybe we are continuing in that great tradition. peter: let's hear from jack from davenport, iowa. go ahead with your question. >> what would holmes think about the internet, where people are looking for rooms full of people so they can get them all stirred up, and then they yell fire to stir up a lot of anger? beck's great question, so important, the question gets to the heart of homes incitement test. in the abrams decision he not only said that speech had to be strongly protected, but he endorsed a version and it was arculated that speech could ly be restricted if it's intended to and likely to cause imminent violence. so it's not enough to say something that someone may be, possibly in the future might react badly to, it has to be intended to create imminent violence in the violence has to be imminent and serious. the supreme court embraced that in the brandenburg case in 1969, decades after holmes articulated it. but

you know, and i need a scalia who's a good friend. we used to argue about it. we'd argu publicly.bock texas in a big stadium because they'd never seen a supreme court justice before. they thought maybe it'e like football game. the but any case, there they were and and we were they would thinking what those two were good friends, which we were which we were. and then i'm trying to figure out, look how what can i say here that will make you see that life changes over the that stood for so clearly x 200 years ago they have to adapt a littl bit in their application not necessarily in the values they have so idnow nino george washington didn't know ou internet. he said i knew7k that then he well, the problem is really the two this is there are two campers and one sees the other putting on hi running shoes. and he says what he said, well, there's a bear in the camp, the in the camp. you can't outrun a bear. yeah, but i outrun you. all right, that's one level of slight, bad comedy, but at the other level, he to me that you have a method using what's the purpose of this■y statute? what ar

because there was some criticism and dissent in that case from justice scalia, the current rakes thatel and make him answerable to the justice department to avoid what justice scalia referred to as an unconstitutional fourth branch of government. it is absolutely lawful. the idea is just giving some credence to the argument that is pending in the southern district of florida. maybe it gives judge cannon something to hang their hat on. ultimately, these will be upheld and the case will go forward. however, it does provide another basis. >> it is interesting for me to watch the continued deconstruction of the judicial system. it just really is amazing to watch this. to have the courts go along with this, anthony, i am struck by a twitter post by andrew wiseman on the sentencing delay. he says judge mershon moving the sentencing to mid-september is smart, it gives trump and da time to brief the issues but he will ultimately reject the week trump claims and the new mid- september sentencing date will make it very hard for trump to then be able to appeal this before the election as he will

do y'all remember when justice scalia died in february of 2016?he republicans blocked the president's nomination, president obama's nomination, to fill that vacancy for nearly a year, by making up an entirely new standard that there be no confirmations of the court during an election year. but then, when justice ginsburg died in 2020, republicans rushed to push president trump's nominee at the same time votes were being cast in any election that trump would lose. it is outrageous. [applause] i know i don't look it, but i served in the senate for 36 years. [laughter] including as chairman and ranking member of the judiciary committee. i have been told that i have ever seen more supreme court nominations as senator, vice president, and resident than anyone alive today. -- senator, vice president, and president than anyone alive today. [applause] i have respect for institutions and the separation of powers laid out in the constitution, but what is happening now is not consistent with that doctrine of separation of powers. extremism is undermining the

i look at that and i see something different than in my day justice scalia and he was far more knowledgeable on case law. i thought something different. and i interpreted that differently. it doesn't mean he's a horrible person or that i'm not a horrible person. we just interpreted it differently. what's happened is you've got an organized effort, leading it out saying we want to appoint judges who take an originalist view of the constitution. it's hard to think they're using originalist standard but they were very simple and they promised to do the same thing if trump gets elected. in 2025 the plan, what's in there is a proposal that trump replace the two older conservative judges with two younger conservative judges and then expand the court. i hear some democrats still proposing to expand the court being too rash by republicans or then get face a republican president if trump gets in was i want to expand so that i can point that becomes unalterable majority. were far better off in my view with the court that sits 5-4 slightly conservative, or slightly liberal. as we had mostly during the

do what they have to do in the mold of justice's antonin scalia, samuel alito are great gentleman and another great gentlemen, clarence thomas trump, more than delivered on his 2016 campaign, promises to name conservatives to the courts. his single term appointments rival those of presidents who held office for twice as long as he did. but legal scholars note it's not just the number of trump appointees. its who he appointed that has had such a dramatic impact on the judiciary that will resonate for decades. >> we like people in their 30s so they're there for 50 years or 40 years. trump's three supreme court nominees, all younger for than 55-years-old when he named them to the bench, meaning his judges could have decades to shape rulings and policy across the country. in the key common denominator amongst all of his picks, rock rib conservative credentials. will you commit to voters tonight that religious liberty will be an absolute litmus test for anyone you appoint, not just for the supreme court, but to all courts? >> yes, i would that 2016 promise of conservative judicial appointm

as justice scalia said in on against olson, the separation of powers prevent from righting every wrong, but it does so that we do not lose justice barrett: okay. and the special counkes a point that i think is a pretty compelling one. you admit that if the president were successfully impeached that he could be criminally prosecuted after impeachment, right? mr. sauer: assuming the prosecution was for the same conduct of which he was coicted, not impeached. he must be convicted. that word "conviction" is righ there in the clause. okay.ce barrett: okay. granted. u also say that these criminal statutes, unless they explicitly mention the president, don't y to him. so how can you say that he would be subject to prosecution after impeachment while at the same time saying that he's exempt from these criminal statutes? mr. sauer: well, there are statutes, as they concede, where a prt -- congress has purported to do so. jubarrett: a few. two or three. mr. sauer: they haven't done a rehensive review. i think it looks like al did was text search for "president" in 18 u.s. code. again, under fran

antonin scalia samuel alito, a great gentleman and another great gentlemen, clarence thomas trump, more than delivered on his 2016 campaign, promises so just to name conservatives to the course, his single term appointments rival those of presidents who held office for twice as long as he did. but legal scholars note it's not just the number of trump appointees. it's who he appointed that has had such a dramatic impact on the judiciary that will resonate for decades. >> we like people in their 30s, so they're there for 50 years or 40 years. trump's three supreme court nominees, all younger than 55-years-old when he named them to the bench, meaning his judges could have decades. the shape rulings and policy across the country in the. key common denominator amongst all of his picks, rock, rib, conservative credentials. will you commit to voters tonight? that religious liberty will be an absolute litmus test for anyone you appoint think not just for the supreme court but to all courts? >> yes, i would that 2016 promise of conservative judicial appointments is especially following the death

this is someone who on the chair of the senate judiciary committee on 1985 confirmed antonin scalia. he believes in the institution. i am paraphrasing. i may not agree with his politics, but it is reagan's choice to install him as associate justice. he has come along way since then. the supreme court has also come along way and i think we talk about the twilight of this presidency. he speaks to a lot of different topics in this speech. he talks about ukraine, talks about gaza, talks about climate. the supreme court is a specific thing he spends a little bit of time on. i want to call for supreme court reform because this is critical to our democracy. the fact that he calls it out in this 13 minute speech, one of the last two big ones who will make, is an indicator that it is a priority for this administration and it will be interesting to see. we talk about november, november, december, and january are critical for the survival of our democracy we and the supreme court could very well play a role in that. if there is going to be reform, time is of the essence. >> when he dropped out

as justice scalia said, the separation of powers prevents us righting every wrong, but this way we do not lose libert >> the special counsel makes a point which is a pretty compelling you admitif the one. president were successfully impeached, he could criminally prosecuted after impeachment? >> assuming the prosecution was for the same conduct for which he was convicted. >>ed. you also say these criminal st, unless they explicitly mention the president, dot apply to him. how casay he would be subject to prosecution after peachment while at the same time saying he is exempt from these criminaltes? >> well, there are statutes on vacancy -- t or three. >> they haven't done a comprehensive . it looks like all they did was text search for "president." under franklin, it's llg that it isn't a magic word requirement. more fundamentally, theyee there are statutes that exist. in addition to that, much impeachment can occur as a result of private conduct. the impeachment judgment clause does do significant work b authorizing the subsequent prosecution of a prt there, because the framers, if yo

as justice scalia said, the separation of prevents us from rig every wrong, but th we do not lose liberty. >> the special counsel makes a compelling you admit that if the one. impeached, he could befully criminally prosecuted after impeachm >> assuming the prosecution was for the same conduct for which he was convicted. >> granted. you also say thesenal mention the president, don'titly applim. how can you say he would be subject to prosecution after impeachment while at the same time saying he is exempt fro these criminal statutes? >> well, there are statutes on y -- >> two or three. >> they haven't done a comprehensive review. it looks like all they did was under franklin, it's telling that it isn'a magic word requirement. re fundamentally, they can see there are statutes that exist. in addition that, much impeachmenoccur as a result of private conduct. the impeachment judgment clause do significant work by authorizing the subsequent prosecutia president there, because the framers, if you look in the nstitutional convention, principally concerns about private conduct. >> just to pick up

after the sudden death of antonin scalia. she declined interest in both and while ag and 2014, her close knit family expanded. she married loss. angeles attorney douglas emhoff. she has made a lot of noise as california's junior senator on the high-profile judiciary and intelligence committees. she has stood out in hearings using her skills as a prosecutor. attorney general barr, has the president or anyone at the white house ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone? >> i wouldn't. i wouldn't yes or strict. could you repeat that question? i will repeat it in a chamber dominated by republicans. she has helped lead the fight for national police reform and the federal anti-lynching bill. >> they're not marching in the streets for water down proposals been vocal on the need for more relief and critical of the white house handling of covid 90. >> i think there's been other vacuum of leadership at this white house and supported impeachment of president trump. i am in favor of beginning impeachment proceeding

they really mean one of his best friends on the court was, antonin scalia. scalia would come and talk to him, you know, but they waited until he died. i mean case they kind of just hinted at what would be necessary to stop desegregation laws. they waited. he died. but the nineties in a series of cases that culminate in missouri versus jenkins basically. the court said to the extent that school segregation patterns just reflect segregated neighborhoods, that's the district school district's fault. and so we will no longer force them to have integration pants to overcome residential segregation. and that's the main reason we have rapidly resegregated and justice marshall was devastated. but the day after the opinion came down, he came back in the office. his jolly self, you know, and. his attitude was, you know, each generation has to just pick up the fight. so you young people in the room, you got to pick up the fight. and i said, i'm. sure sure. i enjoyed that. he took.

decs onward but the originalismisne s taken up just in recent decades, not very old all, justice scaliaone of the key proponents of this, this idea that we need to reach back in history and reaching back in histis going to help us better be informed about the way in which be shaped going forward. alan: i'm soonturno you and i hope you're thinking of your questions. but before we do that, i tee up one last issue i know wee on. at a health conference, there is a lot of discussion about equite equitable health for everyone in the country. and yet there's a lot of jurisprudence right now that's e institutions and government prms policies that they think could help achieve that. it would also, of course, be naive to think the reproductive health cases don't have a racial element. but even setting that aside, there's a directttac on anything that is -- that hav certain characteristics associated with trying to achieve equity. can we talk about that? michele: let's. i don't think we he eproductivet for purposes you're talking about which is really3o about democracy, democracy within the space.

in the united sversus sun diamond, a case about gratuities, the court is pr familiar with, justice scalia wrote an opinion for animous court in which he used a hypothetical what would hpe if the president received a sports replica jersey at a typical whuse event, would that violate section 201-c? and the court offered a construction it would have to for an official act to avoid that p. if there were such well received understanding that presidents are not included in general federal criminal unless the president is specifically named, which he is not in section 201, justi scalia would have thought of that and some member of the court woue reacted and none did. justice jackson: all right. let me go on to ask abouthat you take the petitioner's position to be in this case cause we have a lot of talk about drawing the lines, justice vanaugh and justice gorsuch ggted we should be thi about blasingame and that within the -- first we have private versus ol and then within an official now we have thing about core acts versus other acts as we try to figure out at what level the president is going

the old story where justice scalia and justice ginsburg went to the opera together. at least those two were collegial. we have lunch together. for reasons i will say, that is important, but we talk about some of my colleagues share a great love of baseball. some of my colleagues share a great love of golf. all of this is welding good for us. if you are hated by your colleagues, we would have a more miserable existence. there is a bug bite noah feldman about the 1940's court which is called "scorpions," and they just despise each other and i cannot imagine how they went into work every day. i cannot imagine that the public would care. the public should care about is where i am going to say collegial -- if the collegiality brings about a certain kind of decision-making process, in other words if it means people listening to each other and talking about the law and making decisions, if it leads to people being able to step into each other's shoes and see the world to another person's eyes were see different legal issues through a different perspective. so to the extent

justice scalia died. then barack obama could not get a confirmed supreme court justice for 11 months because they said you don't confirm them during presidential years. then in 2020 when justice ginsberg passed away from september 26 of 2020 to october 26th of 2020, they were able to confirm amy comey barrett. you can do it in the blink of an eye with the fear joe biden just might win that election so they stole two seats. the dobbs decision is the first installment. then the chevron decision. then the gun rights and presidential immunity. so everything that has happened thus far is a preview of coming atrocities from this supreme court. and so, my bill would expand the supreme court. it would say that two supreme court justices must be reclaimed so that it makes up for the two stolen seats and then two additional justices must be given to president harris next year so she can expand the court out to 13. then begin to restore the balance on this court. otherwise, we are going to live for a long time with

. >> it is a good .96 votes i think for scalia at 97 votes for ginsburg opposite ends of the pole in you look at being a judgment both qualified. so it started with ted kennedy trying to destroy the clarence thomas what they tried to do to kavanaugh. liberals tried to destroy conservatives. they could care less about the rule of law unless the rule of law is working for them. when the rule of law is used to advance or liberal agenda it is great, like you said before if they see a constitutional conservative judge about too go into court they will destroy this person if they can get away with that they tried it with thomas, they try to kavanaugh it did not work i'm proud of the role i played of helping to make sure conservative judges get on the court when it comes to trump and trump are judges there are no rules. here's what we have we have the chevron case overturned that is a really big deal. courts no longer are bound by administrative rulings that make no sense. they can revisit these rulings anew. the chevron doctrine was putting a blanket over the economy giving it power to une

after the sudden death of antonin scalia. declined interest in both and while ag and 2014, her close knit family expanded. she married loss. angeles attorney douglas emhoff. she has made a lot of noise as california's junior senator on the high-profile judiciary and intelligence committees. she has stood out in hearings using her skills as a prosecutor. attorney general barr has the president or anyone at the white house ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone? >> i wouldn't. i wouldn't yes or strict. could you repeat that question? i will repeat it in a chamber dominated by republicans. she has helped lead the fight for national police reform and the federal anti-lynching bill. >> they're not marching in the streets for water down proposals been vocal on the need for more relief and critical of the white house handling of covid 90. >> i think there's been other vacuum of leadership out of this white house and supported impeachment of president trump. i am in favor of beginning impeachment proceedings

antonin scalia law school at george mason i'm there of dedicated my career to that because they don't fit a lot of the trends that i'm gonna talk about here. and i also want to talk about the reception up. it's you of crisis that has been in particular or the support that the chancellor of the university has shown for the for the benson center and its enthusiasm for it. when i when i met with them so some and i'm not going to but i'm gonna talk about everybody else else that how's that sound so i want to start off with a premise that underlies this whole thing. i don't know what a conservative strategist is, what what the conservative strategy is for fixing higher education. but whatever it is, it's not working. is there anybody here who thinks that whatever we're doing at higher education is working right? it's just getting worse, right? it just sometimes gets worse slowly at it. sometimes it gets worse quickly, but it always gets worse. and it never goes backwards. and the history of the world is that, frankly, whenever the left captures an institution, it never goes back. and we ar

joining me now, chris landau, former scalia and thomas clerk.ormer ambassador do mexico and victor davis hanson, hoover institution senior fellow. let's start with you, chris this is kind of an interesting deal because we found out today, i believe in axios, that they didn't even alert the democrat judiciary, senate judiciary committee about these proposals. so, you know, dick durbin didn't know anything about them. maybe that gives the democrats plausible didn't. isdeniability.is this a campaig. >> this is not a serious document. a serious proposal. as you said this would require constitutional amendments to overturn federal judges on the bench for life and they are impartial and they don't have other interests at stake. and, you know, the idea that we're going to radically overhaul the separation of powers because joe biden doesn't control the supreme court? it's ridiculous. i mean, the supreme court is doing its job. it's interpreting the law. and, you know, this is the one branch that the democrats don't control. they can't deal with that so

chevron was championed by the conservative svengali antonin scalia it is one of the better decisions ever come out of the supreme court. the reason why it was a conservative decision in the 1980's and trumpeted by conservatives in the 1980's is because conservatives believed they were more likely than not to hold control over the executive branch. this is during the reagan era. when reagan looked unbeatable. when george h.w. bush would succeed him. they thought they would control the executive rage and thus be able to deregulate the environment, worker safety, health safety, civil rights -- thought they could deregulate through the executive branch and so they loved chevron because it capped what they thought were liberal activist judges out of their way. fast forward 40 years, it is relatively hard for republicans and conservatives to ensure long-term control over the executive branch. it is relatively easy now that they have the super majority on the supreme court to control regulation through the courts for the next 20 or 30 years. that is why the rest of the conservatives have fl

as we have seen from the behavior of clarence thomas, scalia, samuel alito, this self enforcing notionoes not work and we should not expect it to. president biden's reported proposal would be an ethics regime that would be enforceable and also term limits. senators have already introduced a bill that would introduce an 18 year term limit and create a rolling process for the justices to go on and off the court. this plan that we have been talking about faces long odds in congress where it would require approval with a super majority in the senate, a slim republican majority in the house. that is a tough task to take. it is on some level encouraging that the president has seen the reporting we have done and others have done and decided that some kind of reform is necessary. clearly it is from what we have reported. amy: andy kroll, i want to thank you so much for being with us. investigative reporter for propublica. his recent book is titled "a death on w street: the murder of seth rich in the age of conspiracy." we will link to his new piece on propublica. in a private speech j.d. vance