Brett Kavanaugh: a Washington insider since the day he was born

He investigates the work of a liberal judge, recalls a classmate. But he got an internship with a curator, Judge Walter Stapleton, a Delaware court of appeal judge who was not considered a "feeder" – a judge whose clerks had a realistic chance of obtaining a prestigious post of Clerk of the Supreme Court. Judge Stapleton, in the spring of 1991, when an important case involving abortion rights, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, was brought to court. Judge Stapleton wrote the majority opinion, which confirmed many provisions of a severe Pennsylvania abortion law that a district court judge had overturned. (A representative of Justice Kavanaugh's confirmation team declined to comment on whether he had been involved in the opinion.)

The following year, he made the unusual decision to request a second stage of the court of appeal. Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit, a conservative known to be a difficult boss whose rooms served as a launching pad for a clerk of the Supreme Court, opened the door to a clerk and asked Professor Priest for suggestions [19659003]. I called Kavanaugh and asked him, "Do you want to do another internship?" Recalls Professor Priest. The match was made. "He thought Brett was just fantastic," Professor Priest said of Judge Kozinski. Friends say that the work marked Judge Kavanaugh's legal ascent and refined his conservatism to focus on the exact words of the Constitution, which he would later call "a document of majestic specificity."

The clergy was not easy. "When we started as law clerks, he told us that we work for people and that we have to consider ourselves at work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year," Judge Kavanaugh testified at his confirmation hearing. "I can say from personal experience that Judge Kozinski kept his promise."

(Judge Kozinski retired last year after several women accused him of sexual harassment and some opponents to judge Kavanaugh asked whether he knew or should have A spokesman said he had never heard of sexual harassment allegations against Judge Kozinski up to their published last year.)

Pulling up the highest echelons of the legal world, he applied for clerk-in-chief Rehnquist. He told his colleagues that he had obtained an interview, although he did not get the job. Mr. Kavanaugh continued his studies at the solicitor general's office, which is arguing for the government in the Supreme Court.