Supreme Ambition by Ruth Marcus

Author:Ruth Marcus
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2019-12-02T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

Late that afternoon, the phone rang at the home of Beth Wilkinson, a leading Washington trial lawyer. A former army lawyer and federal prosecutor, Wilkinson had sought—and won—the death penalty for Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, under the direction, ironically, of Merrick Garland, then a senior Justice Department official.

Wilkinson’s husband, television journalist David Gregory, picked up the phone. There was a slight pause, then, “David, it’s Brett Kavanaugh.” The two men knew each other; their daughters played together on the middle-school basketball circuit, and they had had dinners at the home of their mutual friend Miguel Estrada.

“Hi, Brett,” Gregory replied. “You must want to speak to my bride.”

Kavanaugh got right to the point. “Something’s come up,” he told Wilkinson. “A story about a woman, and I understand if you don’t want to but if you’re interested, I would really like if you would represent me.”

Wilkinson, as Kavanaugh well knew, was a Democrat who had represented a quartet of Hillary Clinton aides in the FBI’s e-mail probe. But she was the kind of tenacious advocate who liked to think of herself as willing to take on anyone in need of legal help and who bristled at the notion that some clients were off-limits because of their politics. Still, she had partners to check with. Representing clients in #MeToo type situations was dicey. Wilkinson was also in the middle of a high-stakes trial, representing the NCAA in an antitrust lawsuit challenging its restrictions on paying student athletes. But Kavanaugh needed help, and she decided quickly: Wilkinson and her partner Alexandra Walsh, who had clerked for both Garland and Breyer, would represent him.

Wilkinson spoke with McGahn later that night. They were drafting a press release, and Wilkinson wanted to include an acknowledgment from Kavanaugh that sexual assault and harassment are grave problems, that he took them seriously as a husband and father. “We’re not doing that,” McGahn said. “I showed it to all the women on my staff, and nobody likes it.” The eventual statement was more sparse but left no room for backtracking. “I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation,” Kavanaugh said. “I did not do this back in high school or at any time.”6

In private, Kavanaugh was reeling. “I can’t believe this is happening to me,” he told one friend. “You know me. I don’t do this with women.”

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