Feder David Joseph - A Republic, If You Can Keep It

On a beautiful autumn afternoon in 2016, I found myself sitting outside enjoying lunch with a friend. In kind tones, he told me that he thought it was a shame I hadnt made then-candidate Donald Trumps publicly announced list of potential Supreme Court nominees. No matter, I replied: I was very happy with my job as a federal circuit judge and loved my life in Colorado. Soon enough the conversation moved on, a lazy meal ended, and we said our goodbyes. But before I managed to walk a block, my phone buzzed. It was a text from my lunch companion: A new, second list just came out and I had to see it.

Looking back, I can see that this moment marked the beginning of the end of my life as I had known it. It wasnt so obvious at the time. Even as the election neared, the polls reported that candidate Trump had little chance of becoming President Trump. Whats more, my friends told me, the second list was just a courtesy or maybe for show and only the first list mattered; so even if the polls proved wrong, there was no way Id wind up the nominee. All that sounded about right to me.

It came as a surprise, then, when I received a call two months later asking me to come to Washington to interview with the Vice Presidentelect. And it was an even greater surprise when, soon after that, the President-elect asked me to visit him in New York for a second interview.

The shock still hadnt worn off when I found myself sitting with my wife, Louise, in the White House on January 31, 2017. I could hardly believe that later in the evening the President would announce to the nation his intention to nominate me to the Supreme Court. The formal nomination would be transmitted to the Senate first thing the next day, February 1, on what would have been my fathers eightieth birthday. It was a lot to take in.

Not just for me, but for my family too. Earlier in the day, the President tweeted: Getting ready to deliver a VERY IMPORTANT DECISION! 8:00 P.M. The media knew the decision concerned the Supreme Court pick but had no idea who the nominee would be. Television commentators speculated all day. Meanwhile, I sat quietly in the Lincoln Bedroom working on my remarks for the evenings announcement. The President had offered me that historic spot as an office for the day. Knowing that Louise was born and raised in England, he gave her the use of the bedroom across the hall typically reserved for Queen Elizabeth and once occupied by Winston Churchill. Finding a little time late in the day, Louise rang her father back in England to tell him the news, but before she could say anything my father-in-law interjected that he had stayed up to watch the announcement. He had seen all the reporting, and he was sure that a friend of mine was about to get the nod. Louise replied that she was pretty sure I was the pick. No, he countered, the other fellow was caught on television just now driving toward Washington, and the newscasters were sure it was him. My father-in-law wasnt even convinced when Louise told him that we had slipped through the White House kitchen entrance and were now in the Lincoln Bedroom. Maybe the real nominee was in a room down the hall?

To be fair to my father-in-law, I was almost as surprised as he was that I was busy preparing for a nationally televised appearance in the White House. Only days earlier, I was happily living on a quiet country road called Lookout Ridge outside Niwot, Colorado, a little town named for a great Arapaho chief. Yes, I had written hundreds of judicial decisions over the last decade, sitting on an appellate court that serves about 20 percent of the continental United States. But few people outside of legal circles knew who I was.

That life was now over. Our trip to Washington was enough to convince me of that. Two young White House lawyers, Mike and James, had arrived at our home on the Sunday afternoon before the scheduled Thursday evening announcement of my nomination with the task of accompanying Louise and me to the nations capital. I was out mowing the lawn and asked the pair to join us for our usual Sunday dinner of chicken curry. They accepted and, after our meal together, headed off to a local hotel with plans to return the next morning to collect us for the flight.

Except at some point Monday morning the President told the media that he would be making his nomination on Tuesday instead of Thursday. Eager to break the news of the Presidents pick before he could make his own announcement, reporters quickly descended on all of the homes of the prospective nominees, and satellite dishes, cameras, microphones, and lawn chairs soon crowded the end of our street.

Mike and James, wearing suits and ties (not exactly standard attire in the Colorado countryside), approached the frenzy in their rental car and immediately realized that if they continued to our home they would be spotted. To avoid that, and after more than a few abandoned plansincluding a run to the local superstore for casual clothesthe lawyers called to ask: Would Louise and I please hike a mile through the prairie, away from the reporters camp? They promised to pick us up at a trailhead. It may have sounded good to them, but the prospect of lugging my wifes suitcase through brush seemed like a bad idea to me.

Instead, Louise and I decided to ask a neighbor to drive us out. The reporters had already seen his car come and go a few times and maybe they wouldnt noticeand, even if they did, it seemed to beat the alternative. Our neighbor, a dear friend, enthusiastically agreed. As we got into his car he said, You know, Neil, I have a better idea. Theres another way out. That was news to me. We had lived in our home for years, and while there were plenty of hiking trails and horse paths, there were no other roads out of the neighborhood. My friend pointed to a path that led from the back of a neighbors house to a nearby commercial barn and said he had managed to drive it before. I grew up in Iran during the revolution, and I learned a thing or two there, he continued. And I would never buy a house with only one escape route.

So I fled my houseand, temporarily, the spotlightby way of a bumpy farm track. My neighbor and I came to call our experience the Escape from Lookout Ridge. In retrospect, it wasnt an escape at all. That drive threw me face first into the topsy-turvy world of modern-day Supreme Court confirmation battles.