News and Events

Press Releases

School of Law Presented Jan Crawford Greenburg, ABC News Correspondent  

One of television's recognizable faces, ABC News Supreme Court correspondent, Jan Crawford Greenburg, visited Pepperdine University School of Law on Thursday, Feb. 1, for a discussion and signing of her new book Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court. 

The embargoed book was released just prior to the event on Jan. 23.

After twelve years of covering the Supreme Court, Greenburg has seen firsthand the inner workings of the least public of our three branches of government. On Feb. 1, she sat down with four of the nation's most respected constitutional scholars: Jonathan Varat, Jesse Choper, Professor Doug Kmiec, and Dean Ken Starr for a provocative conversation about her book.

Topics such as the Anthony Kennedy substitute for right-fielder Robert Bork were addressed, and numerous nomination questions were raised.

In the book, Greenburg picks up the story with the Rehnquist Court which, despite having seven Republican nominees, proved deeply disappointing to conservatives hoping to reverse decades of progressive rulings on key social issues.

Greenburg breaks news in her revelations about the effect of Chief Justice Rehnquist's illness on the process, on the truth behind Harriet Miers' disastrous nomination and how it was really scuttled, and on how decades of bruising battles led to the triumph of the conservative agenda with the appointment of two of its leading judicial exponents.

Supreme Conflict gives fresh perspectives across the entire sweep of its story, from the conservative movement's early fumbles with the nominations of justices Anthony Kennedy and David Souter to its crowning successes with the appointments of justices Roberts and Alito.

Cokie Roberts, news analyst for ABC and NPR, and author of Founding Mothers, says, "Jan Crawford Greenburg draws back the veil on the least public of the three branches of government. Taking us from inside the conference room where the Supreme Court decides its cases, to inside the homes of the High Court's newest members as they learned of their selection by the president, Supreme Conflict provides riveting reading about an institution that has a profound impact on all of our lives."

More praise for Supreme Conflict comes from Bob Schieffer, Chief Washington Correspondent for CBS News. Schieffer says, "Jan Crawford Greenburg raises the curtain on the Supreme Court and shows us things we have never seen before. We get the inside story on how the President's own people sabotaged his effort to put Harriet Miers on the Court. We find out how the relationships the justices forge behind the scenes affect the decisions they hand down and we get new insight into how they reached the decision that led to George W. Bush becoming President in 2000. I can't remember a book where I found out more inside information about anything. This is a masterpiece of reporting that should establish Jan Crawford Greenburg as the preeminent reporter covering the Supreme Court and the law."

Jan Crawford Greenburg is a correspondent for ABC News who covers law and politics for World News Tonight, Nightline, Good Morning America, and This Week with George Stephanopoulos. She previously served as the Supreme Court analyst for the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS and Face the Nation on CBS, and was the chief legal affairs writer for the Chicago Tribune. She has covered the Supreme Court for twelve years, and has had extensive interviews with nine of its justices. With high-level sources inside the White House, in the Justice Department, and on Capitol Hill, Greenburg has gained unique access to the leading players in the confirmation battles. She is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School and has an undergraduate degree from the University of Alabama.