Jodi Kantor

And I think there was often an assumption in the past that we could write about the decisions, we could write about the oral arguments, but we couldn't get behind the scenes to see how power is really being exercised.

But listen, journalists scrutinize power.

It's what we do.

And we can't have like a Supreme Court-sized exception

in our compact with the public.

So in stories like this, in other stories, we have been able to get behind the scenes because there are so many questions about the court that we don't have answers to.

The place is a locked box.

How partisan are the justices?

You're a great question.

How do people age in these jobs?

What does it mean to hold power with, like, no accountability for 20 or 30 years at a time?

Whose...

Who's trying to influence?

Who's trying to influence the justices?

And so slowly, these are the questions that our whole reporting team at The Times is starting to answer.

It's such a great question.

Courts have always been political.

I mean, look, like, the justices are appointed by the presidents.

We totally know that.

But the job of a justice or a judge is to transcend, right?