Biography of a Corrupted Court

Lisa Graves’s new exposé of Chief Justice John Roberts deconstructs the right-wing takeover of the Supreme Court.

By Paul FinkelmanJanuary 31, 2026

• Politics

• Law

WITHOUT PRECEDENT: How Chief Justice Roberts and His Accomplices Rewrote the Constitution and Dismantled Our Rights (2025) is a remarkable, engaging, occasionally frustrating account of the right-wing Supreme Court takeover. Written by attorney and former Senate staffer Lisa Graves, it is part history, part memoir, and part snarky but effective takedown of Chief Justice John Roberts, who Graves argues is not the “nice” guy many people think he is. It is also a brilliant explanation of how conservative big money and a long-term strategy changed American politics, and a detailed account of the way political conservatives, inside and outside government, have shaped the Supreme Court and other federal courts since 1991.

Graves’s thesis, supported by evidence drawn from popular media, investigative reporting, and scholarly sources, is that the current court has become a bastion of radical conservatives, intent on remaking the United States in their image. Graves blames this on conservative organizations, particularly the Federalist Society, very wealthy donors, and right-wing strategists who carefully groomed smart young lawyers to work for the party or in Republican administrations and to serve as federal judges, eventually seeding the Supreme Court.

Her biggest bête noire is Leonard Leo, longtime vice president of the Federalist Society, who raised vast sums to support it. He has more entries in her index than any other subject.

Graves teaches us that Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett all worked for the Republican Party in Washington, DC, and in Florida to prevent a full recount of the 2000 presidential vote that ultimately led to George W. Bush becoming president.

The through line Graves presents is a long-term conspiracy to put Roberts on the court and surround him with other loyal conservatives. It is, of course, not that simple. Surely, no one in 2000 was imagining who would be put on the court more than 16 years later by a president who at the time was a young real estate investor, whose companies had declared bankruptcy three times already (and would declare bankruptcy three more times by 2014). To be blunt, this suggestion of a long-range conspiracy to put Kavanaugh and Barrett on the court just doesn’t wash.

Graves also details the corruption, and the appearance of corruption, by justices who have taken expensive gifts and presents from wealthy ideologues and then voted to support legal outcomes those individuals wanted and sometimes profited from. While I agree with her analysis of the planning and aggressive behavior of the Federalist Society, Leonard Leo, and his minions, there may be some blame to be directed at Democrats as well, who often come to a political gunfight with a butter knife. I will return to this idea later, but first, a little bit about the corruption, which on this court is indeed rampant.

The most corrupt members of the court are Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas. They have taken so many expensive gifts—and not reported them as they are supposed to do—that even Graves cannot detail all of them. People who are not MAGA will want to have blood pressure medicine handy as they read about the litany of free flights on private jets, luxury vacations, First Growth Bordeaux, and wonderful meals. In 2008, just two years into his tenure on the court, Alito “took a private jet from Washington, DC, to Alaska for a luxurious salmon-fishing trip with billionaire hedge funder Paul Singer.” Leo, “who had helped Alito get confirmed to the Court two years earlier,” arranged the trip. Another conservative funder paid for Alito’s “$1,000-per-night luxury lodgings.” The trip included “sightseeing plane rides,” fishing excursions with “expert guides,” dinners of “Alaskan king crab legs or Kobe filet,” and wine that “cost $1,000 a bottle.” Graves notes that six years later, Alito joined a 7–1 majority decision favoring Singer in Republic of Argentina v. NML Capital, Ltd., which led to Singer winning billions of dollars. Graves properly chastises Alito for not disclosing his trip, which by law he was required to do, and for not recusing himself given his personal ties to Singer. However, in her eagerness to suggest that Alito’s vote was essentially a result of these gifts, she fails to explain that the outcome in this case upheld lower court decisions, was consistent with existing precedents, and was supported by Clinton and Obama appointees on the court.

Graves likewise details the many gifts Clarence Thomas has received and never reported. She hardly misses a chance to be snarky. Thus, Thomas received free vacations (and other things) from Harlan Crow, whom she describes as “the billionaire Nazi-memorabilia collector.” This piece of evidence about his collecting habits is interesting and bizarre (though Graves does not explain why it matters).

Overall, Graves, who was a Washington insider, has great stories to tell. Some are personal, some are more about the politics of the nation’s capital. She hammers Roberts and the court over and over again. She notes that Roberts appears upright and honorable but that he is actually slippery. When being confirmed, he asserted that no one, not even the president, is above the law. But in Trump v. United States in 2024, writing for a 6–3 majority, Roberts concluded that presidents are, in fact, above the law insofar as crimes committed in office were “official acts” and therefore within the scope of their office. It is reasonable to contrast Roberts’s statements during confirmation with his opinion in this case. I think the case was wrongly decided and that indeed much of what Trump did from November 2020 to January 2021 was clearly criminal and not in the scope of his office. But Graves does not give the kind of analysis we might expect from a long time Senate staffer and a graduate of Cornell Law School. For example, she quotes Alexander Hamilton from Federalist No. 77 stating that the president is “at all times liable to impeachment, trial, dismission from office, incapacity to serve in any other, and to […] subsequent prosecution in the common course of law.” Roberts and others would argue, as Hamilton is arguing here, that a prosecution can only come after impeachment and conviction. Trump was impeached twice—a new record for misbehavior in office—but sadly, the Senate never convicted him. I agree with Graves that Trump should have been tried for some of his actions, but the Hamilton quotation is not all that useful for making the point.

Beyond the meals and wine, there is also the unseemly partisan behavior of Alito, Thomas, and their families publicly rooting for the criminal gangs that stormed the Capitol on January 6. Ginni Thomas openly collaborated with the “Stop the Steal” rally and the attempt to overturn the election during the counting of the electoral votes. While the riot was going on, she texted the White House to stand firm against the electoral college count. Alito flew MAGA flags and an upside-down US flag, “a symbol of the violent January 6 insurrection,” at his house and his summer home. Pathetically, he blamed his wife for these acts. Stubbornly, both justices refused to recuse themselves from cases involving January 6.

These facts raise significant issues about propriety and fairness. Sadly, Graves is not interested in any complexities. Ginni Thomas is not on the court. She has a life of her own and she works with conservative political groups. Presumably, neither Graves nor any other progressive would argue that a married woman must suppress her professional aspirations because of her husband’s job. It is also unclear whether her husband, the justice, in fact should not have sat on cases involving these issues. However, when Ginni is directly involved in a case, as she has been, it seems clear that Thomas should have recused himself but did not.

Justices should not be openly proclaiming political views on issues that will come before the court, but they have done so since the court began. Graves does not suggest where the bright line is that justices should not cross. Ruth Bader Ginsburg attacked Trump when he was first running for office, calling him a “faker,” but did not recuse herself in cases involving him or his first administration. Justices typically recuse themselves only when they have a direct financial interest in a case, where they argued the case or ruled on it in a lower court, or where their family members are involved. For example, Justice Stephen Breyer would not sit on appeals that involved decisions by his brother, US District Judge Charles Breyer. Justices often, but not always, recuse themselves when cases involve companies where they own stock, or even publishing companies with whom they have book contracts.

Graves correctly condemns Alito and Thomas for sitting on cases involving men who have funded them and on the January 6 cases, even though they were so openly partisan at the time. Weirdly, Graves condemns Roberts for allowing Alito and Thomas to sit on these politically charged cases. “Thumbing his nose at ethical standards,” she writes, Roberts “allowed Alito to participate in [such] case[s]”; she also argues that neither Alito nor Thomas “should have been allowed to participate” in Trump v. United States. She asserts that Roberts “allowed Thomas to participate in the trio of cases” involving January 6, “despite the obvious bias at play and the appearance of bias.”

This is quite frankly an astounding set of statements from someone who wants to explain the court to her readers. Graves apparently does not know (or does not want to admit) that the chief justice has absolutely no power to force justices to recuse themselves. This may be a problem for the system, but it has been in place for about 235 years. As Justice William Rehnquist said of the role of the chief justice, “he presides over a conference not of eight subordinates, whom he may direct or instruct, but of eight associates who, like him, have tenure during good behavior, and who are as independent as hogs on ice.” One might say here that Graves, “thumbing her nose at the rules of the Supreme Court,” condemns Roberts for something over which he has no power.

Graves also seems to have no sense of when a recusal is in order. For example, she argues that Thomas “should have recused himself” in Citizens United v. FEC (2010) but does not explain on what basis. He was certainly not a party to the case and did not donate to the campaign. His wife worked for a political nonprofit that raised money for candidates, but that can hardly be the standard for recusal. Other justices have ruled on cases where they were even more directly involved than Thomas or Alito. For example, Justice Felix Frankfurter gave advice to the secretary of state who fired a State Department official without due process and then later voted on the official’s appeal to the Supreme Court. Similarly, he consulted almost daily with Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy while the latter was planning and implementing the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, and then Frankfurter voted to uphold the internment. As Graves teaches us, there ought to be clearer guidelines for recusal as well as stricter enforcement for justices reporting outside income. But such guidelines and enforcement of rules do not exist, and it seems quite clear that at the present the chief justice has no power to order justices to recuse themselves.

Graves reminds us of Anita Hill’s testimony at Clarence Thomas’s confirmation hearings accusing him of sexual harassment and graphically crude sexual comments when she worked at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) while he was the organization’s chairman. She then notes that Leo nevertheless helped Thomas get confirmed by raising money for a media campaign on his behalf. She also points out that another actor, a wealthy Republican donor named Boyden Gray, donated to assist with Thomas’s confirmation after Hill’s testimony, and that Utah’s Republican senator Orrin Hatch was “attacking Hill’s credibility.” A new organization, Citizens United, also launched a media campaign to support Thomas.

Graves asserts that Thomas should never have been on the court, and I agree with her there. But Graves fails to tell her readers that 11 Democratic senators voted to confirm him, by a vote of 52–48, while two Republicans opposed his confirmation. Graves might think Gray was the key to “orchestrating the confirmation of Clarence Thomas,” but she never asks what it was about the Democratic Party and its leadership that, with 57 votes in the Senate, and two Republicans joining them, it could not defeat Thomas? And what was it about the Democratic Party and its donors that it could not come up with a PR campaign, as Citizens United did, to stop his confirmation?

Surprisingly absent from this book is what Democrats might have done differently from the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the present. Graves properly notes that Rahm Emanuel “grossly miscalculated” when leading Obama’s team to the passage of the Affordable Care Act and failed to push to create Medicare for All. But was this Emanuel’s fault, Obama’s, or that of the Democratic leadership in Congress? Is Graves throwing Emanuel under the bus for the decisions of a number of people? With 55 senators (including two independents who caucused with them) and a large House majority in 2013–14, the Democrats squandered an opportunity to give the nation a truly workable healthcare system. Graves points out that the Republicans were able to “run out the clock and used their expanding propaganda machinery” to undermine the administration. But what she does not do is ask the bigger question: why were the Democrats unable to adequately respond?

Graves reveals much about the failure of moderates, liberals, and progressives to play the long game that, since the Reagan years, dedicated conservatives, libertarians, and reactionaries have been playing. She offers us a partial explanation of how we got to where we are, but without a clear path forward. Perhaps that will be in another book, one that will openly discuss Democratic failures and explore the strategic successes of their opponents.