Newsweek - USA (2019-11-08)

shortly before the supreme court’s new

term began this month—one that promises

to be a blockbuster—Senator Sheldon White-

house thrust himself into the spotlight. A member

of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he confronted

the High Court with a shockingly blunt friend-of-

the-Court brief. “The Supreme Court is not well,”

he wrote. “And the people know it. Perhaps the

Court can heal itself before the public demands it

be ‘restructured in order to reduce the influence

of politics.’”

A chorus of critics denounced his submission as

a brazen threat to pack the Court, with the Wall

Street Journal editorial board dubbing it “an enemy-

of-the-Court” brief.

In a candid interview with Newsweek on

October 15, Whitehouse defended his filing,

expounded further on Supreme

Court partisanship, and warned of

the “nightmare” influence that secret

donors might be having on judicial

selections and decision-making. 

He also addressed impeachment.

Photo illustration by GLUEKIT NEWSWEEK.COM 13

Secret Donors

& Secret Ballots

Sheldon Whitehouse sounds off on impeachment,

court packing and “getting to 67 votes”

THE NEWSWEEK INTERVIEW

W

HI

TE

HO

US

E^

BY

A

ND

RE

W

H

AR

RE

Rʔ

BL

OO

M

BE

RG

ʔG

ET

TY

^ T

O

P^

RI

G

HT

^ A

ND

RE

W

C

AB

AL

LE

RO

ʝR

EY

N

O

LD

Sʔ

AF

Pʔ

G

ET

TY

BY

ROGER PARLOFF

@rparloff

He described Senate Majority Leader Mitch

McConnell as a “wily cat” who “treads carefully

through uncertainty,” and opined that there might

already be “enough horror and resentment in

the Republican Senate caucus to get us to 67 for

conviction on the impeachment articles, given a

secret ballot.” 

A Democratic senator since 2007, Whitehouse,

64, is in his third term. Previously, he served as

his state’s U.S. attorney and attorney general. He

is married to marine biologist and environmen-

tal activist Sandra Thornton Whitehouse, and they

have two children. Edited excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: Let’s start with impeachment.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has

Easically said there won’t Ee remoYal on his watch.b

WHITEHOUSE: So there was a fund-

raising video in which he said that. I

haven’t seen him say that outside of

the fundraising effort. I’m not sure

that Mitch writes his own fundrais-

ing pitches. 

“I’ve had a very hard time

expressing myself.” » P.