‘Operation Higher Court’: Inside the religious right’s efforts to wine and dine Supreme Court justices
“We would rehearse lines like, ‘We believe you are here for a time like this,’” which is a reference to the Old Testament Book of Esther during which the Hebrew lady born with the title Hadassah turns into queen of Persia and succeeds in stopping a genocide of her folks.
Schenck mentioned the purpose was to create an ecosystem of assist for conservative justices, as a manner of constructing them extra forthright of their views.
The beforehand undisclosed initiative by Faith and Action illustrates the extent to which some Supreme Court justices interacted with advocates for the religious proper throughout a interval when the court docket grappled with social points resembling abortion and homosexual rights. The calculated nature of Faith and Action’s efforts reveals how exterior actors can use social actions and costly dinners to penetrate the court docket’s extremely sealed atmosphere.
Thomas and Alito didn’t reply to requests for remark by way of the Supreme Court. Efforts to attain the household of Scalia, who died in 2016, have been unsuccessful.
Schenck’s group, Faith and Action, turned part of Liberty Counsel in 2018 and is now often known as Faith and Liberty. Its vice chairman, Peggy Nienaber, was quoted earlier this week as praying with Supreme Court justices in a recording posted on YouTube and reported by Rolling Stone journal. Schenck informed the journal that he started the prayer classes as a manner of constructing rapport with conservative justices.
Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, mentioned, “I don’t know a lot about what Rob Schenck has done in the past . . . When he says he invited couples to wine and dine justices, I know of nothing like that that happened.”
Schenck pointed to one distinguished evangelical couple — Don and Gayle Wright of Dayton, Ohio — as main funders of his group, which established an workplace instantly behind the Supreme Court constructing. Don Wright turned rich by way of his furnishings enterprise and actual property agency, proudly owning houses in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and Siesta Key, Florida.
Schenck mentioned that, as well as to making common donations to Faith and Action, the Wrights financed quite a few costly dinners with Thomas, Alito, Scalia and their wives at Washington, D.C., hotspots together with the Capital Grille. Don Wright died in 2020.
Gayle Wright didn’t return a cellphone message left at her Ohio dwelling, searching for remark for this story. A request for remark made Friday to the household enterprise Don Wright Realty, now headed by their son Scott, produced no rapid response.
Don Wright’s obituaries on Dignity Memorial and Legacy.com cited his charitable work with Faith and Liberty and his closeness to Supreme Court justices by way of his assist for the Supreme Court Historical Society. Among the footage featured on the Dignity Memorial web site have been pictures of the Wrights and their prolonged household with Scalia and Alito, and Don Wright with Chief Justice John Roberts.
“The late Antonin Scalia enjoyed hunting and fishing trips with the [Wright] family. But whether he was sitting in a hunting cabin with the guys or at a Supreme Court dinner he was always the same,” learn the obituary on each websites.
In reporting Wright’s passing, The Dayton Business Journal wrote on August 3, 2020: “As trustee of the Supreme Court Historical Society, Wright became friends with several prominent justices, including Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and the late Antonin Scalia. An avid hunter/outdoorsman, Wright said Scalia would often accompany the family on hunting trips.”
Supreme Court Historical Society newsletters point out Wright was a serious donor to the group and was elected as a trustee for a three-year time period in 2003 and once more in 2006.
Schenck mentioned he met the Wrights at Faith Baptist Church in Sarasota, Florida, the place he was a visitor pastor and they attended whereas staying at their trip dwelling in close by Siesta Key.
He mentioned the Wrights had strongly conservative views on abortion, homosexuality and gun rights, and devoted themselves to reinforcing the Supreme Court justices’ personal conservative views on the points. They have been the most energetic of the roughly 20 {couples} concerned in the program Faith and Action known as “Operation Higher Court,” Schenck mentioned.
All the {couples} “knew they were being coached” and adhered to a “casual reporting procedure” during which they provided suggestions on their dinners with the justices and their wives, Schenck mentioned.
The Wrights have been the most closely concerned of all the {couples}. “They set the standards,” Schenck mentioned. “They were the most active, the most engaged.”
Staver, of Liberty Counsel, mentioned he’s acquainted with one occasion of Schenck teaching {couples} on how to behave round Supreme Court justices — however it was in reference to the historic society banquet, not non-public dinners.
“What he did was he would talk to them [the couples attending the banquet] about protocol. I saw him do that once. He would talk to them about how these are Supreme Court justices and he actually would say ‘don’t talk about issues or cases, this is just a dinner.’ He used it himself to try to get people to contribute to Faith and Action. Afterwards he would ask them how they liked it (the society dinner). That’s the coaching he’s talking about. He wasn’t saying set them up to ‘say this to them or that to them.’”
For his half, Schenck mentioned that as well as to the dinners, Scalia was a visitor at the Wrights’ dwelling in Jackson Hole. A financial disclosure report Scalia filed reveals his transportation, meals and lodging for a June 2006 go to to Jackson Hole have been paid for by the Wyoming State Bar in reference to a unbroken schooling program for legal professionals. Similar reviews present he spoke to the Wyoming State Bar in Cheyenne in September 2008 and to the Federalist Society in Laramie in October 2012, with bills paid by these teams.
Property data point out the Wrights bought their Jackson Hole dwelling in 2013.
As the leaders of a separate department of the authorities, the justices have lengthy set their very own moral requirements.They should not certain by guidelines utilized to different federal judges, and make their very own selections on whether or not to recuse themselves from circumstances on conflict-of-interest grounds. The justices file annual disclosure varieties beneath the Ethics in Government Act requiring them to report items now price greater than $415 in mixture, however meals are hardly ever reported as items and “personal hospitality” acquired at a bunch’s non-public dwelling or enterprise needn’t be reported. The justices additionally report yearly on journey, lodging and meals acquired in reference to talking engagements and authorized conferences.
A evaluation of greater than a decade of monetary disclosures from Thomas, Alito and Scalia discovered no reporting of restaurant or different meals as items, other than meals being included together with transportation and lodging bills reimbursed by teams and entities sponsoring talking occasions that includes the justices.
There are few public references to Faith and Action’s work with the judiciary, however a 2001 article in a Christian journal, Charisma, described the group’s “Operation Higher Court” as providing “prayer and ministry to the Supreme Court justices.”
“The Supreme Court is the most insulated and isolated branch of the U.S. government,” Schenck informed the journal. “They do not interface with the public, so we’ve literally had to pray our way in there each step of the way.”
In the story, Schenck describes assembly and praying with Scalia simply 24 hours after the court docket handed down its controversial choice resolving the 2000 presidential election, Bush v. Gore.
Schenck’s personal choice to break with the religious proper is detailed in the 2015 documentary “The Armor of Light,” and his 2018 e-book, “Costly Grace: An Evangelical Minister’s Rediscovery of Faith, Hope, and Love.”
He is at present the director of the Washington-based Dietrich Bonhoeffer Institute, named for the German theologian who opposed Nazism.
