Mollie Hemingway

And that, I think, has soured some of the justices about their interactions with each other.

since historically they have always tried to speak well of each other publicly and up the court as an institution, understanding how important it is to the preservation of the republic itself.

If you don't have rule of law, you don't have a country, and if you don't have respect for the courts, and if you're doing things to undermine respect for the courts, either by speaking that way or through just completely lawless decisions, that's bad for the country as well.

And I do think it speaks well of everybody involved.

I think the justices who were not Kavanaugh were more outraged by that statement than Justice Kavanaugh, who handles slights fairly well.

But the other justices— He'd have to.

We've seen what he's had to go through.

But the other justices, I think, were truly appalled by that.

It was good that she apologized for that.

But it's also true, you know, one thing I try to, in the book, also be balanced about things.

And one of the things I think is worth noting is that each and every one of these justices could be making a tremendous amount of money off the court.

They are sacrificing a lot to serve in this role.

Justice Alito is the only one who's been a public servant his entire life, I think.

Maybe Sotomayor, too.

But...

These are people who really could, like in Alito's case, I'm sure he could be making tens of millions of dollars outside the court.

And it's a big sacrifice.

And so it's not appropriate to speak this way about any of your colleagues, knowing what people are going through.

Not that they don't have positions of immense power that also mean something.

Well, the Atlantic, I was thinking about it when this story came out and how Kash Patel has responded by suing them.