Chapter 04 - Fixing A Hole Where The Rain Gets In
Elena and Jackie made an agreement not to talk about The Minute Women at all while at the Congresswoman’s office. They were there to do work for the Congresswoman. But if they went out for lunch or took a break to go to Starbucks, then such conversations were okay, as presumably they were on their own time then. They also agreed to closely monitor the work they were doing for the Congresswoman, to make sure the quality and their pace of output remained the same as before. Of course, as writers they needed the time ahead of sitting at the keyboard to figure out what they would write about. Some of that time would be in conversation with other staff who worked for the Congresswoman, another good chunk of time was spent in conversation with each other, but then there was still a block of time where they were off on their own. That might be doing some research online for what they’d be writing about. Yet there was still other time that they needed just to gather their thoughts - staring at the ceiling, if you will. Later on, both of them confided that during this necessary part of their work time, their minds would often drift to think about The Minute Women. It was very hard not to.
They began working on a draft of the white paper the day after they had signed on. It would be on the subject matter that Caroline presented the prior evening, but while keeping the presentation simple, as per her instructions, they would embellish the argument, including reactions to these moves by the press, both liberal and conservative. And they would consider the justice who had preceded the nomination, Scalia in the case of the Merrick Garland nomination, Ginsburg in the case of the Amy Coney Barrett nomination. Time inconsistency in the arguments about the importance of the predecessor would help make their case. They also agreed on the length of the piece, somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 words, not counting endnotes. The endnotes would be there to show they had done their homework, not to contain some of the argument so as to stay within the word limit. If they found the word limit too constraining, they’d have to consider either taking out some part of the argument or writing a second white paper to include the entire argument. This eventually became the standard approach that the full writing group would embrace.
The following Monday they received a message from Caroline, which indicated that she had identified two more candidates for the writing group. Caroline knew each of them and thought they’d be a good fit. Caroline wanted to know if they wanted to be present at the job interviews, which she said would happen Tuesday evening. They indicated they would be there.
As to Caroline’s current mindset, she was confident that these two others would work well and become Team B, with Jackie and Elena Team A. She was so confident about this that she decided to interview both of them at the same time, quite an unusual move. Then, assuming that no red flags were raised during the session and that these two were willing to sign on, they’d take a break for the newcomers to complete the paperwork and then have a work meeting with all four of them, mainly to talk about process but also to get Team B set up with their first writing project.
* * * * *
When everyone had arrived and was seated in the conference room, Caroline made introductions. Caroline had met Jeffrey King while working for the Congressman. Jeffrey worked at the State Department, mainly in the office that put out position papers. Occasionally Jeffrey would be loaned out to the office of the press secretary, when there was some emergency afoot and the office needed to operate 7x24, for example at the start of the war in Ukraine. Caroline and Jeffrey once had a long conversation after putting in a full day working together about whether to stay in a government position for the long haul or to eventually move to the private sector. At that time Caroline indicated she was unsure on this while Jeffrey thought he’d be working in government for his full career. After Caroline finished introducing Jeffrey, everyone stood and took turns to shake his hand.
When they sat down again Caroline began to introduce Alice Goodwin. Alice was a friend from high school who went on to get a PhD in English and is a professor at the local university, where she teaches writing. Her husband is also a professor there in the department of chemistry. They have a daughter who is in elementary school, which had shut down during much of the pandemic, so they chose to home school her during that time. Even while they were teaching exclusively online from home, it began to be too much, so they each went on a reduced time appointment until their daughter’s school reopened. The loss of income then created some challenges. They were still in catch-up mode income-wise, even after they had returned to work full time once their daughter went back to school. So the moonlighting was appealing to Alice for that reason, as well as to engage in real writing that wasn’t academic, a long-time wish that Alice had.
After another round of handshakes Caroline also briefly expanded on the skill set these two brought that would help round out the writing group. Jeffrey could speak to the view from within the State Department, both on how Secretary Clinton had been treated by Congress and on Presidents Trump’s Russian connection. Alice, who had no experience working in government, could better represent the reader of the white papers and make sure that the tone in the papers avoided seeming like writing by insiders intended for other insiders.
Then Caroline briefly introduced Jackie and Elena, explaining that as they knew each other already and wanted to work together, they would be Team A. If Jeffrey and Alice did come on board, they would be Team B. Each team would work on a draft of a working paper on a topic that the group as a whole had already okayed. That really meant Caroline would suggest a topic and then the rest of the group might modify it some. When they thought the draft was in good enough shape, they’d share it with the other team. Mostly the other team’s job would be as copy editor. But the other team could also suggest ideas that needed to be included but weren’t in the draft or ideas that should be deleted entirely. The suggested process was for each of the other team’s members to do the copy editor function individually at first and then they would share their modifications to produce one set of modifications in total. That would be returned to the first team.
There would be a simple rating of the draft as well: quite good as is, only minor modifications needed, some significant changes required, or a complete rewrite has to be done. The first two ratings meant the first team could then complete the rewrite and produce an executive summary, which together would be sent to the other team and to Caroline. The second two ratings meant there needed to be another full round of the process. Caroline asked if there were any questions about this. There weren’t, so they moved on.
Caroline knew that Team A had been working on the draft and wondered if they would give an overview of where they were in the process. Elena described the subject matter and their process. She said they were about halfway done in producing a good draft. They had decided to go through video archives for both Fox News and MSNBC, to contrast how the judicial appointments and their aftermath were reported and then commented on. It was somewhat time consuming to do this as they ended up watching a fair amount of video that wasn’t relevant. So the writing was slower than they initially thought it would be. Elena asked if there were any questions.
“I have one,” Alice said. “Do you have any information about viewer reactions to these videos?”
“So far, we don’t. Do you have a suggestion about how we might get that?”
“Maybe this is a stretch, but perhaps you could check polling data from before and after a particular video or set of videos that argued similar things. Perhaps there is information in that.”
“It’s a good thought. We’ll look at that. Any other questions?” Elena looked at Jeffrey. He shook his head.
Caroline interjected. “This is supposed to be a job interview. Team A, do you have questions for the potential new hires?”
Jackie immediately asked, “Jeffrey, as the only male in the room, will you be okay working in an organization where the leadership and much of the other staff are female?”
Jeffrey responded, “When Caroline and I worked together before, we got along great.” Caroline nodded. “Of course, then we were peers. Now she’ll be my boss. I think we’ll still get along very well. I have had no issues with any of my co-workers at the State Department, so I wouldn’t anticipate any here. And I think the mission of The Minute Women that Caroline explained to me when she first contacted me about the work is really great. So I think I will be okay in the organization and all of you will be okay with me.”
“Jeffrey, will you be mansplaining to us on a regular basis?” Elena posed that question partially in jest, and everyone did laugh about it, but then she followed up with, “I would still like you to answer the question.”
“On points that I think are important to consider in writing or editing one of the white papers, I will make my case forcefully, but respectfully. On the usual bs that happens in an office, I will be a follower, not a leader. That fits my personality anyhow, but seems to make sense even more in this situation. I am a big baseball fan. If for some reason the group starts talking about major league baseball, then there is a risk I might mansplain there.” That also got a few chuckles.
Caroline asked if there were any more questions for Jeffrey. Both Jackie and Elena shook their heads. Then Caroline asked Alice if she had any questions for Jeffrey. She also shook her head.
Caroline then asked if there were questions for Alice.
Jackie asked, “Alice, with the rest of us working in government or in Caroline’s case having worked in government, will you feel intimidated in our discussions as a newcomer to much of what we talk about?”
Alice smiled. “The blunt answer is that I won’t feel intimidated. I went through the drill of being a new assistant professor. While some of the tenured faculty were quite decent, there were several who were overbearing at first. For a while, that wasn’t pleasant at all. Then I learned to push back at them, with my own forceful argument. The first few times it came as a surprise to them. After that, they grew to respect me enough not to test my mettle that way. I can deal with that sort of pressure. On the other hand, if your are talking about something that is new to me, I really should listen, perhaps ask clarifying questions once in a while, and learn from the discussion.” Jackie nodded her approval to that response.
Then Elena asked, “Alice, what do you think is the most important thing that you bring to the table that our group wouldn’t have without you?”
Alice paused to collect her thoughts and then replied. “Elena, as Caroline said, I bring a deeper sense of the reader. But since that might seem too abstract for you to wrap your head around, let me give you a concrete example. Some years ago I did an experiment in my teaching that turned out well. I wrote out a one page essay, which was about the reader filling a document with context that the author only implies, but doesn’t state explicitly. Much of what we read is written that way. I then sent the essay to various faculty members around campus who differed in ethnicity, gender, political stripe, and subject matter expertise. I asked them to read the essay first, then fill out a questionnaire that was designed to make explicit the context they were filling in. There was remarkable variation in the responses. It wasn’t that some were better and others were worse. It was that they were different, because their worldviews were different. When I showed the results to my students they looked amazed. They are encultured to believe that professors are experts, so must know everything. The variation in the responses came as a complete surprise to them. It was a real eye opener.”
Jeffrey jumped in. “Wow, Alice, that’s amazing! Can we get a copy of that essay and the various responses?”
Alice replied, “I actually published a paper about it. It’s in an open journal, so it is publicly available. I can give you the link to the article.”
Caroline stepped in at this point. “Thank you, Alice. Are there other questions for her?” The others shook their head. Then Caroline looked at Jackie and Elena. “Do you want to have a private chat about your view of these candidates? Or can we do that out in the open.” In normal recruiting, this would not be proper procedure. But since Jeffrey and Alice were friends of Caroline, it seemed the right question to ask.
Jackie jumped in. “I’d be very pleased to have both Jeffrey and Alice as part of the group.”
Elena followed. “I completely support what Jackie said.”
Caroline asked, “Jeffrey and Alice, what sayest thou?”
Jeffrey responded first. “I very much want to part of the group.” Alice followed. “Me too.” There were hugs all around.
Caroline asked, “Can I get your attention?” It took a minute or two for the rest to settle down. “Let’s take a break here to let Jeffrey and Alice do the paperwork and get some refreshment. Then we’ll have the first real group meeting.”
* * * * *
When they resumed at the conference table there was somebody else in the room. Caroline introduced Nicole and explained that Nicole was her assistant. So far, she has assigned Nicole two tasks that are relevant to the writing group. First, Nicole will build a timeline of critical events. There are a lot of important dates to keep track of and it isn’t easy to keep them all in your head. Caroline asked, was Barr appointed before the Senate voted on Kavanaugh? If you don’t recall, check the timeline. Nicole will keep the timeline on the bulletin board in the office lobby and have an online version as well. The timeline will be a living document. We’ll continue to add events to it as we learn more about what’s important to consider.
Nicole was also assigned to be the social media person for the group, in terms of posting The Minute Women announcements to social media. When the group publishes a white paper, there will be an organizational Tweet announcing that and likewise for other important news and other social media outlets. Caroline urged the writers that if they wanted to shape the message that Nicole posts, have a chat with her ahead of time. Caroline said she’s very open to suggestions. Eventually there will be some others who track how we’re doing on social media. They haven’t been hired yet.
Then Caroline gave an overview of what they are trying to do. They need to build a case that Trump was a criminal at the time that he made the Supreme Court nominations. Criminality with regard to January 6 doesn’t count here, at least not directly, because that came later. They also need to argue that Senate Republicans, either by aiding and abetting Trump or by their own actions were also criminals at the time they voted to approve these nominations. In doing this, it is likely necessary to compare and contrast how Congress dealt with alleged transgressions by Hillary Clinton to things that Trump did. Bias in treatment does not show criminality per se; it only shows partisanship. But when such bias is applied to actions that damage national security or are a consequence of the Senators directly benefiting from turning a blind eye, that may very well be criminality. If the group can show that, then these judicial appointments are tainted and should be rescinded. The honorable way would be for these justices to step down of their own accord. If not that, other means must be found to achieve the same result. A newly reconstituted Supreme Court could then overturn Dobbs and restore Roe.
But for this to happen, the vast majority of voters must come to see this as the case, whether Democrat or Republican or Independent. Of course, diehard Trump supporters will never do that. The focus for us is on convincing everyone else.
Caroline went on to say that the argument would be made in stages, with the ultimate goals not made overt at the outset. At the beginning it would simply be a reconsideration of the recent political past in light of what is known at present. Caroline then followed up by saying she has been questioning her own thinking about the timing of these stages. She gave the following reason.
She had hoped that the January 6 hearings would convince Republican voters of Trump’s criminality in regards to that event. But what she has read so far about polls of Republican voters after having watched the televised January 6 hearings was more muddled. It seems that these voters are uncertain, not entirely convinced by the arguments, but somewhat overwhelmed with it all and not wanting Trump to run again in 2024. This uncertainty among Republican voters makes the task for the writing group harder. Caroline then wondered if they should be open about wanting to restore Roe early on, and appeal to Republican voters who also wanted that outcome. It might be a way into getting them to think through the questions about Trump criminality. But Caroline still wasn’t comfortable with the idea. She thought the group should talk it through, though not at this session.
Here the focus will be on Russian interference in the 2016 election and the connection to Trump. From the Mueller Report, the subsequent report from the Senate Intelligence Committee, as well as a huge amount of news articles and books on the matter, a lot of information is publicly known, or at least, publicly available. Let’s consider Trumps’s behavior soon after he became President.
He seemed very afraid of potential FBI investigations about this connection that might turn up something unpleasant for him or Congressional investigations that would do likewise. So he clogged the various pathways to prevent that from happening. He used intermediaries for this purpose. Rod Rosenstein was one, though he may have played the intermediary role reluctantly and surely was not a true believer. Firing Comey is an example. The letter Rosenstein wrote didn’t talk about Russian interference in the election at all, but it went on at length about the Hillary Clinton emails. Rosenstein is the one who appointed Robert Mueller as Special Counsel. Yet in his charge to Mueller he somewhat constrained the investigation by saying Mueller was not to investigate Trump’s personal or financial ties to Russia.
Befriending Devin Nunes, who chaired the House Select Committee On Intelligence, offers another example. He ended up blocking any finding by the committee as a whole, and in the middle of 2018 the committee shut down entirely. He eventually resigned from Congress, at the end of 2021, and is now Chairmen of the Trump Media & Technology Group. There’s been much written about the likelihood that Trump obstructed justice by encouraging witnesses to lie under oath, saying that he’d then give them a pardon. There’s been hardly anything said, however, about Trump getting to those who perform the investigation, making it in their interest not to find anything of substance or, if they do, then burying it so the public never sees it.
Moving on, there is no doubt that Trump nominated Barr for Attorney General to bury the Mueller Report. This happened in 2019. Kavanaugh was approved in 2018. The confirmation vote for Barr and the approval vote for Kavanaugh were highly partisan. Getting back to Barr, was burying the Mueller Report its own kind of obstruction? If so, the entire set of Republican Senators, with the exception of Rand Paul, aided and abetted in this obstruction by voting for Barr’s confirmation. This preceded the Advice and Consent Process that ensued after the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett. So it’s relevant for that, but it’s not relevant for the Kavanaugh confirmation.
Something else that’s relevant for that, and the earlier Gorsuch nomination as well, is the Russians penetration of the N.R.A. and using that to influence the 2016 election. There is a minority report of the Senate Intelligence Committee that details this. But, nothing like it from the full committee. Many, if not all, the Republican Senators received substantial campaign contributions from the N.R.A. A handful of Democratic Senators did as well. As part of their lobbying, the N.R.A. encouraged these Senators to look more benignly on Russia. There was news reporting on this but in volume nothing like the reporting on Hillary Clinton’s emails. Senators on the take makes for quite a compelling story.
Carolyn wrapped up this overview by first affirming that there was material for two or three white papers here. Then she asked a couple of rhetorical questions. How do we sort this material for best effect? How do we make our case without overplaying our cards? Then she opened it up for discussion.
Jackie said, “I think a chronological approach is easiest.”
Jeffrey responded, “Even with that, Jackie, there’s a big question as to when the event happened versus when we learned about it. Further, there is a difference between insiders learning about it versus the general public learning about it. The Russian penetration of the N.R.A. is quite damning. It did happen before the 2016 election. But did Republican Senators realize this at the time? We may never know that. So the chronological approach is not that simple.”
Alice jumped in, “An alternative would be to group based on impact. We want to knock the socks off the readers of the white papers as soon as we can. That’s the way to get them hooked on what we have to say. Some element of surprise is needed for this. So I think leading off with the N.R.A being penetrated might be good for that reason. I hadn’t heard about it before. But we need to know now whether Republicans are in denial of it now or if they’ve fessed up to it happening. If they’re in denial, it’s going to be harder to make the case.”
Elena remained quiet until Caroline asked, “Elena, what do you think?” Then Elena replied, “If it were me arguing the case, I’d begin with Trump’s guilt and worry about Republican Senators’ guilt later. The underlying question would be this. Since he was evidently fearful of these investigations, what was it that he was afraid of? And since Trump is well known for creating misdirection in these matters, indeed we might write an entire white paper about misdirection as an approach to avoid accountability, I think that gives us room to speculate some about this. We might mention the various ways Trump tried to block the investigation as a lead in, then the meat and potatoes would be our speculation about why he’d do that.”
Jeffrey said, “I like that, but there is still a lot to chew on. What if Alice and I consider this further on our own and come up with a suggested focus for the first white paper that we write? We can then run it by all of you for your approval. How about that?”
Caroline responded, “That works for me, Jeffrey. Also, I’d like each of you on your own to think about where talking about restoring Roe should fit into what we present.” Everyone nodded agreement. Then Caroline resumed, “It’s getting late and there’s a lot here to process. Let’s conclude for the evening. I hope we can have meetings such as this once a week. If necessary, you can come in through Zoom, though I’d prefer everyone to be here at the office.”
Then Caroline remembered there was one piece of business they needed to decide on now. She said, “Michael needs to know whether on the white papers you will use pseudonyms or if instead you will use your real names. As a group I’d like you to choose one or the other. Your electronic identity within the organization will be based on that choice.”
Not wanting their bosses to know just yet that they were doing this moonlighting work, Jackie, Elena, and Jeffrey all preferred pseudonyms. Alice didn’t care and would go along with the choice the others made. Caroline then said they’ll go with the cutesy names derived from 18th century Americans who were associated with the journalism in some way. The names would be made to sound feminine. Jeffrey was quite okay with that. Caroline closed the meeting by saying that Michael would have some fun with Photoshop to come up with appropriate images for the various pseudonyms. They ended on a laugh. Caroline liked that.
They began working on a draft of the white paper the day after they had signed on. It would be on the subject matter that Caroline presented the prior evening, but while keeping the presentation simple, as per her instructions, they would embellish the argument, including reactions to these moves by the press, both liberal and conservative. And they would consider the justice who had preceded the nomination, Scalia in the case of the Merrick Garland nomination, Ginsburg in the case of the Amy Coney Barrett nomination. Time inconsistency in the arguments about the importance of the predecessor would help make their case. They also agreed on the length of the piece, somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 words, not counting endnotes. The endnotes would be there to show they had done their homework, not to contain some of the argument so as to stay within the word limit. If they found the word limit too constraining, they’d have to consider either taking out some part of the argument or writing a second white paper to include the entire argument. This eventually became the standard approach that the full writing group would embrace.
The following Monday they received a message from Caroline, which indicated that she had identified two more candidates for the writing group. Caroline knew each of them and thought they’d be a good fit. Caroline wanted to know if they wanted to be present at the job interviews, which she said would happen Tuesday evening. They indicated they would be there.
As to Caroline’s current mindset, she was confident that these two others would work well and become Team B, with Jackie and Elena Team A. She was so confident about this that she decided to interview both of them at the same time, quite an unusual move. Then, assuming that no red flags were raised during the session and that these two were willing to sign on, they’d take a break for the newcomers to complete the paperwork and then have a work meeting with all four of them, mainly to talk about process but also to get Team B set up with their first writing project.
* * * * *
When everyone had arrived and was seated in the conference room, Caroline made introductions. Caroline had met Jeffrey King while working for the Congressman. Jeffrey worked at the State Department, mainly in the office that put out position papers. Occasionally Jeffrey would be loaned out to the office of the press secretary, when there was some emergency afoot and the office needed to operate 7x24, for example at the start of the war in Ukraine. Caroline and Jeffrey once had a long conversation after putting in a full day working together about whether to stay in a government position for the long haul or to eventually move to the private sector. At that time Caroline indicated she was unsure on this while Jeffrey thought he’d be working in government for his full career. After Caroline finished introducing Jeffrey, everyone stood and took turns to shake his hand.
When they sat down again Caroline began to introduce Alice Goodwin. Alice was a friend from high school who went on to get a PhD in English and is a professor at the local university, where she teaches writing. Her husband is also a professor there in the department of chemistry. They have a daughter who is in elementary school, which had shut down during much of the pandemic, so they chose to home school her during that time. Even while they were teaching exclusively online from home, it began to be too much, so they each went on a reduced time appointment until their daughter’s school reopened. The loss of income then created some challenges. They were still in catch-up mode income-wise, even after they had returned to work full time once their daughter went back to school. So the moonlighting was appealing to Alice for that reason, as well as to engage in real writing that wasn’t academic, a long-time wish that Alice had.
After another round of handshakes Caroline also briefly expanded on the skill set these two brought that would help round out the writing group. Jeffrey could speak to the view from within the State Department, both on how Secretary Clinton had been treated by Congress and on Presidents Trump’s Russian connection. Alice, who had no experience working in government, could better represent the reader of the white papers and make sure that the tone in the papers avoided seeming like writing by insiders intended for other insiders.
Then Caroline briefly introduced Jackie and Elena, explaining that as they knew each other already and wanted to work together, they would be Team A. If Jeffrey and Alice did come on board, they would be Team B. Each team would work on a draft of a working paper on a topic that the group as a whole had already okayed. That really meant Caroline would suggest a topic and then the rest of the group might modify it some. When they thought the draft was in good enough shape, they’d share it with the other team. Mostly the other team’s job would be as copy editor. But the other team could also suggest ideas that needed to be included but weren’t in the draft or ideas that should be deleted entirely. The suggested process was for each of the other team’s members to do the copy editor function individually at first and then they would share their modifications to produce one set of modifications in total. That would be returned to the first team.
There would be a simple rating of the draft as well: quite good as is, only minor modifications needed, some significant changes required, or a complete rewrite has to be done. The first two ratings meant the first team could then complete the rewrite and produce an executive summary, which together would be sent to the other team and to Caroline. The second two ratings meant there needed to be another full round of the process. Caroline asked if there were any questions about this. There weren’t, so they moved on.
Caroline knew that Team A had been working on the draft and wondered if they would give an overview of where they were in the process. Elena described the subject matter and their process. She said they were about halfway done in producing a good draft. They had decided to go through video archives for both Fox News and MSNBC, to contrast how the judicial appointments and their aftermath were reported and then commented on. It was somewhat time consuming to do this as they ended up watching a fair amount of video that wasn’t relevant. So the writing was slower than they initially thought it would be. Elena asked if there were any questions.
“I have one,” Alice said. “Do you have any information about viewer reactions to these videos?”
“So far, we don’t. Do you have a suggestion about how we might get that?”
“Maybe this is a stretch, but perhaps you could check polling data from before and after a particular video or set of videos that argued similar things. Perhaps there is information in that.”
“It’s a good thought. We’ll look at that. Any other questions?” Elena looked at Jeffrey. He shook his head.
Caroline interjected. “This is supposed to be a job interview. Team A, do you have questions for the potential new hires?”
Jackie immediately asked, “Jeffrey, as the only male in the room, will you be okay working in an organization where the leadership and much of the other staff are female?”
Jeffrey responded, “When Caroline and I worked together before, we got along great.” Caroline nodded. “Of course, then we were peers. Now she’ll be my boss. I think we’ll still get along very well. I have had no issues with any of my co-workers at the State Department, so I wouldn’t anticipate any here. And I think the mission of The Minute Women that Caroline explained to me when she first contacted me about the work is really great. So I think I will be okay in the organization and all of you will be okay with me.”
“Jeffrey, will you be mansplaining to us on a regular basis?” Elena posed that question partially in jest, and everyone did laugh about it, but then she followed up with, “I would still like you to answer the question.”
“On points that I think are important to consider in writing or editing one of the white papers, I will make my case forcefully, but respectfully. On the usual bs that happens in an office, I will be a follower, not a leader. That fits my personality anyhow, but seems to make sense even more in this situation. I am a big baseball fan. If for some reason the group starts talking about major league baseball, then there is a risk I might mansplain there.” That also got a few chuckles.
Caroline asked if there were any more questions for Jeffrey. Both Jackie and Elena shook their heads. Then Caroline asked Alice if she had any questions for Jeffrey. She also shook her head.
Caroline then asked if there were questions for Alice.
Jackie asked, “Alice, with the rest of us working in government or in Caroline’s case having worked in government, will you feel intimidated in our discussions as a newcomer to much of what we talk about?”
Alice smiled. “The blunt answer is that I won’t feel intimidated. I went through the drill of being a new assistant professor. While some of the tenured faculty were quite decent, there were several who were overbearing at first. For a while, that wasn’t pleasant at all. Then I learned to push back at them, with my own forceful argument. The first few times it came as a surprise to them. After that, they grew to respect me enough not to test my mettle that way. I can deal with that sort of pressure. On the other hand, if your are talking about something that is new to me, I really should listen, perhaps ask clarifying questions once in a while, and learn from the discussion.” Jackie nodded her approval to that response.
Then Elena asked, “Alice, what do you think is the most important thing that you bring to the table that our group wouldn’t have without you?”
Alice paused to collect her thoughts and then replied. “Elena, as Caroline said, I bring a deeper sense of the reader. But since that might seem too abstract for you to wrap your head around, let me give you a concrete example. Some years ago I did an experiment in my teaching that turned out well. I wrote out a one page essay, which was about the reader filling a document with context that the author only implies, but doesn’t state explicitly. Much of what we read is written that way. I then sent the essay to various faculty members around campus who differed in ethnicity, gender, political stripe, and subject matter expertise. I asked them to read the essay first, then fill out a questionnaire that was designed to make explicit the context they were filling in. There was remarkable variation in the responses. It wasn’t that some were better and others were worse. It was that they were different, because their worldviews were different. When I showed the results to my students they looked amazed. They are encultured to believe that professors are experts, so must know everything. The variation in the responses came as a complete surprise to them. It was a real eye opener.”
Jeffrey jumped in. “Wow, Alice, that’s amazing! Can we get a copy of that essay and the various responses?”
Alice replied, “I actually published a paper about it. It’s in an open journal, so it is publicly available. I can give you the link to the article.”
Caroline stepped in at this point. “Thank you, Alice. Are there other questions for her?” The others shook their head. Then Caroline looked at Jackie and Elena. “Do you want to have a private chat about your view of these candidates? Or can we do that out in the open.” In normal recruiting, this would not be proper procedure. But since Jeffrey and Alice were friends of Caroline, it seemed the right question to ask.
Jackie jumped in. “I’d be very pleased to have both Jeffrey and Alice as part of the group.”
Elena followed. “I completely support what Jackie said.”
Caroline asked, “Jeffrey and Alice, what sayest thou?”
Jeffrey responded first. “I very much want to part of the group.” Alice followed. “Me too.” There were hugs all around.
Caroline asked, “Can I get your attention?” It took a minute or two for the rest to settle down. “Let’s take a break here to let Jeffrey and Alice do the paperwork and get some refreshment. Then we’ll have the first real group meeting.”
* * * * *
When they resumed at the conference table there was somebody else in the room. Caroline introduced Nicole and explained that Nicole was her assistant. So far, she has assigned Nicole two tasks that are relevant to the writing group. First, Nicole will build a timeline of critical events. There are a lot of important dates to keep track of and it isn’t easy to keep them all in your head. Caroline asked, was Barr appointed before the Senate voted on Kavanaugh? If you don’t recall, check the timeline. Nicole will keep the timeline on the bulletin board in the office lobby and have an online version as well. The timeline will be a living document. We’ll continue to add events to it as we learn more about what’s important to consider.
Nicole was also assigned to be the social media person for the group, in terms of posting The Minute Women announcements to social media. When the group publishes a white paper, there will be an organizational Tweet announcing that and likewise for other important news and other social media outlets. Caroline urged the writers that if they wanted to shape the message that Nicole posts, have a chat with her ahead of time. Caroline said she’s very open to suggestions. Eventually there will be some others who track how we’re doing on social media. They haven’t been hired yet.
Then Caroline gave an overview of what they are trying to do. They need to build a case that Trump was a criminal at the time that he made the Supreme Court nominations. Criminality with regard to January 6 doesn’t count here, at least not directly, because that came later. They also need to argue that Senate Republicans, either by aiding and abetting Trump or by their own actions were also criminals at the time they voted to approve these nominations. In doing this, it is likely necessary to compare and contrast how Congress dealt with alleged transgressions by Hillary Clinton to things that Trump did. Bias in treatment does not show criminality per se; it only shows partisanship. But when such bias is applied to actions that damage national security or are a consequence of the Senators directly benefiting from turning a blind eye, that may very well be criminality. If the group can show that, then these judicial appointments are tainted and should be rescinded. The honorable way would be for these justices to step down of their own accord. If not that, other means must be found to achieve the same result. A newly reconstituted Supreme Court could then overturn Dobbs and restore Roe.
But for this to happen, the vast majority of voters must come to see this as the case, whether Democrat or Republican or Independent. Of course, diehard Trump supporters will never do that. The focus for us is on convincing everyone else.
Caroline went on to say that the argument would be made in stages, with the ultimate goals not made overt at the outset. At the beginning it would simply be a reconsideration of the recent political past in light of what is known at present. Caroline then followed up by saying she has been questioning her own thinking about the timing of these stages. She gave the following reason.
She had hoped that the January 6 hearings would convince Republican voters of Trump’s criminality in regards to that event. But what she has read so far about polls of Republican voters after having watched the televised January 6 hearings was more muddled. It seems that these voters are uncertain, not entirely convinced by the arguments, but somewhat overwhelmed with it all and not wanting Trump to run again in 2024. This uncertainty among Republican voters makes the task for the writing group harder. Caroline then wondered if they should be open about wanting to restore Roe early on, and appeal to Republican voters who also wanted that outcome. It might be a way into getting them to think through the questions about Trump criminality. But Caroline still wasn’t comfortable with the idea. She thought the group should talk it through, though not at this session.
Here the focus will be on Russian interference in the 2016 election and the connection to Trump. From the Mueller Report, the subsequent report from the Senate Intelligence Committee, as well as a huge amount of news articles and books on the matter, a lot of information is publicly known, or at least, publicly available. Let’s consider Trumps’s behavior soon after he became President.
He seemed very afraid of potential FBI investigations about this connection that might turn up something unpleasant for him or Congressional investigations that would do likewise. So he clogged the various pathways to prevent that from happening. He used intermediaries for this purpose. Rod Rosenstein was one, though he may have played the intermediary role reluctantly and surely was not a true believer. Firing Comey is an example. The letter Rosenstein wrote didn’t talk about Russian interference in the election at all, but it went on at length about the Hillary Clinton emails. Rosenstein is the one who appointed Robert Mueller as Special Counsel. Yet in his charge to Mueller he somewhat constrained the investigation by saying Mueller was not to investigate Trump’s personal or financial ties to Russia.
Befriending Devin Nunes, who chaired the House Select Committee On Intelligence, offers another example. He ended up blocking any finding by the committee as a whole, and in the middle of 2018 the committee shut down entirely. He eventually resigned from Congress, at the end of 2021, and is now Chairmen of the Trump Media & Technology Group. There’s been much written about the likelihood that Trump obstructed justice by encouraging witnesses to lie under oath, saying that he’d then give them a pardon. There’s been hardly anything said, however, about Trump getting to those who perform the investigation, making it in their interest not to find anything of substance or, if they do, then burying it so the public never sees it.
Moving on, there is no doubt that Trump nominated Barr for Attorney General to bury the Mueller Report. This happened in 2019. Kavanaugh was approved in 2018. The confirmation vote for Barr and the approval vote for Kavanaugh were highly partisan. Getting back to Barr, was burying the Mueller Report its own kind of obstruction? If so, the entire set of Republican Senators, with the exception of Rand Paul, aided and abetted in this obstruction by voting for Barr’s confirmation. This preceded the Advice and Consent Process that ensued after the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett. So it’s relevant for that, but it’s not relevant for the Kavanaugh confirmation.
Something else that’s relevant for that, and the earlier Gorsuch nomination as well, is the Russians penetration of the N.R.A. and using that to influence the 2016 election. There is a minority report of the Senate Intelligence Committee that details this. But, nothing like it from the full committee. Many, if not all, the Republican Senators received substantial campaign contributions from the N.R.A. A handful of Democratic Senators did as well. As part of their lobbying, the N.R.A. encouraged these Senators to look more benignly on Russia. There was news reporting on this but in volume nothing like the reporting on Hillary Clinton’s emails. Senators on the take makes for quite a compelling story.
Carolyn wrapped up this overview by first affirming that there was material for two or three white papers here. Then she asked a couple of rhetorical questions. How do we sort this material for best effect? How do we make our case without overplaying our cards? Then she opened it up for discussion.
Jackie said, “I think a chronological approach is easiest.”
Jeffrey responded, “Even with that, Jackie, there’s a big question as to when the event happened versus when we learned about it. Further, there is a difference between insiders learning about it versus the general public learning about it. The Russian penetration of the N.R.A. is quite damning. It did happen before the 2016 election. But did Republican Senators realize this at the time? We may never know that. So the chronological approach is not that simple.”
Alice jumped in, “An alternative would be to group based on impact. We want to knock the socks off the readers of the white papers as soon as we can. That’s the way to get them hooked on what we have to say. Some element of surprise is needed for this. So I think leading off with the N.R.A being penetrated might be good for that reason. I hadn’t heard about it before. But we need to know now whether Republicans are in denial of it now or if they’ve fessed up to it happening. If they’re in denial, it’s going to be harder to make the case.”
Elena remained quiet until Caroline asked, “Elena, what do you think?” Then Elena replied, “If it were me arguing the case, I’d begin with Trump’s guilt and worry about Republican Senators’ guilt later. The underlying question would be this. Since he was evidently fearful of these investigations, what was it that he was afraid of? And since Trump is well known for creating misdirection in these matters, indeed we might write an entire white paper about misdirection as an approach to avoid accountability, I think that gives us room to speculate some about this. We might mention the various ways Trump tried to block the investigation as a lead in, then the meat and potatoes would be our speculation about why he’d do that.”
Jeffrey said, “I like that, but there is still a lot to chew on. What if Alice and I consider this further on our own and come up with a suggested focus for the first white paper that we write? We can then run it by all of you for your approval. How about that?”
Caroline responded, “That works for me, Jeffrey. Also, I’d like each of you on your own to think about where talking about restoring Roe should fit into what we present.” Everyone nodded agreement. Then Caroline resumed, “It’s getting late and there’s a lot here to process. Let’s conclude for the evening. I hope we can have meetings such as this once a week. If necessary, you can come in through Zoom, though I’d prefer everyone to be here at the office.”
Then Caroline remembered there was one piece of business they needed to decide on now. She said, “Michael needs to know whether on the white papers you will use pseudonyms or if instead you will use your real names. As a group I’d like you to choose one or the other. Your electronic identity within the organization will be based on that choice.”
Not wanting their bosses to know just yet that they were doing this moonlighting work, Jackie, Elena, and Jeffrey all preferred pseudonyms. Alice didn’t care and would go along with the choice the others made. Caroline then said they’ll go with the cutesy names derived from 18th century Americans who were associated with the journalism in some way. The names would be made to sound feminine. Jeffrey was quite okay with that. Caroline closed the meeting by saying that Michael would have some fun with Photoshop to come up with appropriate images for the various pseudonyms. They ended on a laugh. Caroline liked that.
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