I'm Elizabeth Slattery and welcome to SCOTUS 101, where we break down what's happening at the Supreme Court, what the justices are up to, and other things related to our favorite branch of government.

The justices are out until mid-January, and they announced late last week that later this term, they will hear three cases involving efforts to subpoena President Trump's financial records.

But to tide you over until the new year, please enjoy my recent conversation with law professor Jack Goldsmith about his new book, In Hoffa's Shadow, a stepfather, a disappearance in Detroit, and my search for the truth.

Welcome to SCOTUS 101, Jack.

Thanks for having me.

So you wrote a book that came out this fall in Hoffa's shadow.

It's about Chuckie O'Brien, one of the leading suspects in Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance and presumed murder.

So it just so happens that O'Brien is your stepfather.

So since your expertise is national security law and presidential power, what led you to

write this book?

I was led to write the book having nothing to do, it had nothing to do with my intellectual

and academic interests.

As I explained in the book, my stepfather has for 44 years been accused, as you said,

of picking up Hafa and driving him to his death.

He was, I was very close to him as a teenager.

He was a great father.

But we had a falling out for about 20 years. And when we got back together, when I was in my 40s, during our conversations, I became convinced, at least as an initial matter, a presumptive matter, that he actually wasn't involved in the, in the killing of Hafa. So I decided about eight years ago, I said to him, if you basically tell me everything

you know, I will try to figure out what I can and try to give you a fair shake than others

have done in terms of his involvement in the disappearance.

And that led me down a long and winding path in which I talked a lot about

the Hoffa disappearance and a lot of other things as well.

So how did you go about, you know, investigating what happened to Hoffa?

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