Mollie Hemingway > Quotes

“Justice Brennan described the power of these unelected justices with chilling clarity when he told his incoming clerks that the most important rule in the law was the “Rule of Five.”
― Mollie Hemingway, Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court

“There had been only three confirmations in the final year of a presidency when the opposing party controlled the Senate, most recently in 1888, when Grover Cleveland nominated Melville W. Fuller to be chief justice.”
― Mollie Hemingway, Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court

“The principle that there is a presumption of innocence in favor of the accused is the undoubted law, axiomatic and elementary,” wrote Justice Edward White in Coffin v United States, tracing it from Deuteronomy through Roman Law, Canon Law, and the Common Law and illustrating it with an anecdote about a fourth-century provincial governor on trial before the Roman Emperor”
― Mollie Hemingway, Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court

“Chairman Grassley in particular was known as the Senate’s “chief transparency officer.”
― Mollie Hemingway, Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court

“Some fourteen thousand people retweeted Gu’s absurd and baseless accusation.30 Bash’s husband, a U.S. attorney, took to Twitter himself to defend his wife’s honor and point out how ludicrous the charge was, adding that his wife is half-Mexican and half-Jewish and her grandparents were Holocaust survivors.31 Nonetheless, many major news outlets, including Time and the Washington Post, reported on the conspiracy theory, fanning the flames on social media.32 If the first day of the Kavanaugh hearings was a circus, the “white power” Twitter follies proved to be the most appalling sideshow.”
― Mollie Hemingway, Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court

“Voters responded so well to Trump’s reference to Sykes and Pryor in debates and speeches that he decided to make a longer list of judges who met with conservative approval.”
― Mollie Hemingway, Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court

“Senators Flake and Murkowski. These senators also cared deeply about the protocols of the Senate and suspected that the Democrats were simply using Ford as a weapon against Kavanaugh. They were dismayed by the revelation that Feinstein was responsible for Ford’s being represented by the political animal Debra Katz. In fact, the performance of Ford’s attorneys during the morning’s questioning was, for these senators, the most interesting part of the morning’s hearings. Katz and Bromwich had interrupted when Ford was asked about her legal representation and tried to keep her”
― Mollie Hemingway, Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court

“...The coarse rhetoric and reduction of women to violently empty reproductive organs isn't a great way to argue against Trump's vulgarity. The unhinged rhetoric, violent anti-speech street protests,and hysteria currently on display don't make Trump look like he's a unique threat.”
― Mollie Hemingway

“The Democratic strategy had been obstruction at all costs, so Klobuchar was annoyed at repeatedly being singled out for being cooperative and reasonable.”
― Mollie Hemingway, Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court

“Don McGahn encouraged Kavanaugh by reminding him there was a reason he had been nominated to the Supreme Court. His professional performance over three decades gave people confidence in him. Figure out what you want to do in Thursday’s hearing and execute it, he said.”
― Mollie Hemingway, Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court

“The group remained in closed session for about an hour. It is customary to continue the closed session for that long even if there are no concerns about a nominee’s record, so as not to call attention to nominees for whom there are confidential vetting concerns.”
― Mollie Hemingway, Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court

“a young woman driven out of public service, Collins ruefully noted, in the name of women’s rights.”
― Mollie Hemingway, Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court

“The principle that there is a presumption of innocence in favor of the accused is the undoubted law, axiomatic and elementary,” wrote Justice Edward White in Coffin v United States, tracing it from Deuteronomy through Roman Law, Canon Law, and the Common Law and illustrating it with an anecdote about a fourth-century provincial governor on trial before the Roman Emperor Julian for embezzlement: Numerius contented himself with denying his guilt, and there was not sufficient proof against him. His adversary, Delphidius, “a passionate man,” seeing that the failure of the accusation was inevitable, could not restrain himself, and exclaimed, “Oh, illustrious Caesar! if it is sufficient to deny, what hereafter will become of the guilty?” to which Julian replied, “If it suffices to accuse, what will become of the innocent?”
― Mollie Hemingway, Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court