Justice Elena Kagan has often been viewed as the most strategic and analytical of the Supreme Court’s three liberal justices. But what she’s also known for behind the scenes is being “emotionally abusive” to her law clerks.
According to a Daily Mail report released Monday, Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway’s new book, Alito: The Justice Who Reshaped the Supreme Court and Restored the Constitution, contains intriguing details about the inner workings of the court and its justices. While largely focusing on Justice Samuel Alito and his career, it also digs into each of his colleagues and their personas — including Kagan.
According to the outlet, Hemingway — “who spoke with over 100 former clerks and staff for the book” — reported that “several of Kagan’s former clerks, ‘along with others at the Court, have described her as “emotionally abusive,” “demanding, demoralizing, demeaning,” and “a hard a**.”‘” Others have seemingly compared her to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, meaning that she moves from being “extremely kind to extremely angry,” Hemingway writes.
“‘Kagan’s clerks had fear in their eyes,’ Hemingway said someone who clerked for a different justice recounted to her,” the Daily Mail described. “Other former aides speculated that there is ‘something psychological going on there,’ Hemingway writes.”
Hemingway also detailed comments from a former clerk for another justice, who drew a stark contrast between how Kagan and Justice Clarence Thomas treat their respective clerks.
“It’s not just that she has clerks work hard. So does Thomas. But he treats them like human beings. The consistent impression is that Kagan is abusive,” the former clerk told Hemingway.
But it’s not just Kagan who has a bad reputation for her reported mistreatment of individuals at the court.
According to The Daily Mail, Justice Sonia Sotomayor “is said to have treated members of the Court’s ‘permanent staff’ like ‘valet[s].'” The outlet reported an excerpt from Hemingway’s book about how there “are known ‘stories of [Sotomayor] barking at them to help her carry her bags.'”
The revelation of Kagan’s treatment of clerks comes days after Fox News reported separate findings from Alito about the role the Obama appointee played in delaying the release of the court’s 2022 Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade and the made-up “constitutional right” to abortion.
Hemingway detailed how the liberal justices slow-walked the release of the decision despite the wave of left-wing threats leveled against their conservative colleagues. This included Kagan, who, according to Hemingway, angrily confronted Justice Stephen Breyer about his willingness to accommodate Alito’s request that the dissent quickly finish their opinion amid these security threats.
Per Fox News, Hemingway wrote that “Kagan remonstrated with Breyer not to accommodate the majority, screaming so loudly, observers noted, that the ‘wall was shaking.'”
