At the end of the day, the senators do have a job.

They do have an obligation and a constitutional responsibility to fully and fairly evaluate

these judicial nominees.

Hi and welcome to Amicus Leitz podcast about the Supreme Court and the courts and the law.

I'm Goliath Wicke and I cover the courts for slate.

This was another busy week at the US Supreme Court where despite the fact that the travel

ban lawsuit was not argued and then dismissed as moot, which is clearly a win for Donald

Trump, the Justice's heard arguments over whether corporations are liable under the Alien

Tort Statute and the scope of the Clean Water Act.

But for soap opera fans, there was a fair amount of giggly coverage about the degree to which

the court's youngest Justice, Neil Gorsuch, maybe needs to spend a little time in the

naughty chair for what seems to be a pattern of cutting off his colleagues and saying things

smugly at them.

But we wanted to pan back a little bit this week and talk about the federal judiciary.

In part because I think this might be the single most unremarked win of the Trump era

and it's a win that will have consequences that last for decades.

Donald Trump took office with whole mess of vacancies and we wanted to talk to somebody

who could explain to us how Trump is under the radar transforming the federal bench.

This seems like eye glazing inside baseball stuff but it really isn't and so I'm so

delighted that my guest this week is Kristen Clark.

She's president and executive director of the National Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights

Under Law.

...