Watergate Prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks Says: May we all survive this.

The day after the much-feared death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stephanie Miller requested the expert legal lady, former Nixon Watergate prosecutor, Jill Wine-Banks. So she came on the show and I heard her discussion about how we may all survive this situation. Then the loss of a great and thoughtful Justice and the prospect of Trump and the desperate Republican’t Party filling her seat with a thoughtless, political hack. Add this to the decades of their fake outrage and whining about supposed “activist judges.” Now we must act. This is not the time to hope for 4 conscientious Republicans to do the right thing.

This is the time for pitched legal battles and parliamentary creativity. Their party is hoping to cling to power with the help of the right-wingers on the court and avoid criminal proceedings that will come if they lose the power to exempt themselves. I believe this is how the conversation went.

Stephanie Miller:

Good morning, Jill Wine-Banks in her official Chicago Steph-head t-shirt, her RBG lace collar, and her RBG pin. Good morning Jill Wine-Banks.

Jill Wine-Banks:

I am so glad to be with you. I was with your fans in Chicago.

Stephanie Miller:

I was going to read this. You are such an amazing human. Karen from Chicago wrote, Steph. I hope you’re hanging in. I know you’re dealing with a lot of personal and then there’s a devastating loss of RBG and current situation. I imagine you’re struggling with the rest of us. Please know the community you created is here for you. We’re all thinking of you, holding you nearer to our hearts. We’re going to mobilize to take this back. We’ll continue to fight, thanks to you.

Jill Wine-Banks is a rock star. She answered our SOS right when the news broke and jumped on our zoom call and they could not have been, Jill, more excited and touched, and amazed. You know, you’re just a hero to so many people.

 

Just like RBG, I thought of you immediately, because you know you got to read “Watergate Girl” and Jill’s book to look at what a trailblazer you were, just like RBG, and there were so few of you. She had to have been, of course, your hero as well.

Jill Wine-Banks:

She was a hero to me. She was an awesome awesome person and I am very lucky because I actually got to meet and know her slightly. I wouldn’t say we were friends, but she was teaching at Columbia at the same time that I was teaching, I was an adjunct there, one day a week and I got to see her in the faculty lounge and have lunch with her.

I also recently sent her a descent collar. I found a beautiful sequined collar and immediately thought of her and hesitated. You know it wasn’t in perfect condition. Could I send it to her and then I thought, oh yes, I could, and she wrote a handwritten thank you note. Which says a lot about who she was. She was such a gracious and wonderful person. Her legacy is not only her court decisions. Which will hopefully live on forever, because we need them now, but it’s also her as a role model for women and, of course, her power and her accomplishments grew exponentially, and so it’s, a big loss to the court.

So It’s a big loss to the country. It’s a big loss to women. It’s, a big loss to anyone who cares about equality. Whether it’s gender equality, racial equality, you name it. She was a leader in that.

Stephanie Miller:

Isn’t that the word Jill, equality. Again, you’re the first person I thought of because you stand on her shoulders. So many women stand on your shoulders. You’re, a trailblazer just like she was, but she was smart, wasn’t she, legally. There was a lot of talk about this this weekend that she fought for men’s rights initially, because that was the whole point of equality. Like you just said, is that there were some instances in which men were discriminated against. So she didn’t just fight. Yeah, she’s a feminist icon but she didn’t just fight for women.

She fought for men, she fought for LGBT people, she fought for people of color. She fought for voting rights right. She fought for all of us.

Jill Wine-Banks:

Stephy Says -Get her book!

She sure did. I will say, that part of fighting for men was part of her strategic thinking about how to persuade people who didn’t share the view that women deserved equal rights was by showing how gender discrimination hurt men. So one of her first cases was for a man who had been denied survivor benefits to take care of a child, which a woman would have automatically gotten and she took on a man.

Because it showed how discrimination affects not just women but men as well. So it was not just because she believed in equality, which she clearly did, but because she also believed it would help persuade, and I think we shouldn’t forget that. She was a leader in discussion, compromise and persuasion. Words mattered.

She used them very carefully and she tried very hard to reach across a complete jurisprudential divide. Her best friend on the court was Justice Scalia, who was 180 degrees from her positions, but they could talk and have civil conversations and try to help to bring along people and even in her descents, her point was to try to persuade people going forward. This is the way to go. Or in one case to say, Congress has to take this. We can’t do it. Congress has to pass a, what became, the Lilly Ledbetter law.

Stephanie Miller:

Yeah and Jill. As you’re talking, I’m thinking. Sadly, it feels like that all that’s dead along with Scalia and sadly RBG. I look at you as one of my heroes because, if you read “Watergate Girl” you’re incredibly nice and gracious and kind, but you’re, tough and so was RBG. You’re, tough as hell, and you’re smart, and it we have to do that now. You were talking about, uh on twitter, I don’t even think we should waste our breath. They don’t care about charges of hypocrisy.

You said rank hypocrisy. Voting has already started. McConnell made up a rule that prevented Obama from fulfilling his constitutional responsibility for a year, Jill. They don’t care about any of that. We can’t, shame them. They only care about raw power. Daniel Goldman said, does Mitch actually think anyone’s buying his dishonest, pathetic attempt to distinguish 2016 from 2020, and you just said no.

No, he does not care. So Jill. What I said is I am really glad that Nancy Pelosi. speaking of tough, you know but fair. She said every arrow is in our quiver, including impeachment, to stop this. We cannot just talk about expanding the court. That’s later we have to fight this fight. Now, right?

Jill Wine banks:

You know there are so many moral issues that are raised here, political issues as well and how this will end up going is yet to be determined. I would say I don’t know what the outcome’s going to be.

Will this unprincipled hypocritical conduct hurt the Republicans? I don’t know. The fact is they probably don’t want to confirm until after the election, because they don’t want to force endangered Republicans to take an unprincipled stand. Right now. That doesn’t mean they won’t hold the vote on November 4^th. When it’s too late for anyone to change their vote.

Stephanie Miller:

They have no principles. Jill, that’s what the problem is. They have already said, even if we lose the White House and the Senate. No, no. We’re still going to do this after the election. We’re going to ram this through.

Jill Wine-Banks:

They don’t, but I’m hoping that there are voters who still do and that’s our only hope. Well, our hope is one, that there could be four Republican Senators who might say, I would be ashamed to look myself in the mirror if I vote. After having said that it’s absolutely impossible for Obama to have a nominee. Even get a hearing on the floor of the Senate in the last year of his term.

Voting has already started. This isn’t just Trump’s last year.

Stephanie Miller:

November third is the last day of voting. It’s only the last day of voting.

Jill Wine-Banks:

Â

We’re already voting and to say that in this time there should be a lifetime confirmation. If he wants to appoint a permanent secretary of the DHS, for example, that’s within his power and that should go forward. Even at this point, but a lifetime appointment where the people are about to speak out on who should make that appointment is a different story. So I think it would be. The fact that they’re talking about it now. When she has not even been laid to rest. It’s just so unseemly and so disgusting. I hope that there will be voters who will think and remember this election comes down to.

Oh, I just heard a new number. I thought it was seven percent who were undecided. I just heard that it’s maybe 11 percent who are undecided. OK, let’s say there’s 10 percent undecided voters in six states. That’s all that matters. Because it is an undemocratic system that we live in. With an electoral college. Even the senate is undemocratic.

 

Stephy Says -Get her book!

Stephanie Miller:

Jill, 70% of the American people want Roe v Wade to stand. They are on the wrong side of every issue. They have long since answered the question: have they at long last no decency? No, they didn’t even wait. They didn’t wait till she’s cold. They didn’t even wait. They’re, not waiting until the memorial or a service, even. They’re not. If they lose the White House in the Senate. They’re not going to wait. They’re going to against the will of the people. An impeached president is going to try to ram it through!

I love you and your legal ladies. So Joyce Vance tweeted, I don’t see McConnell bringing up a nominee for a vote before the election. As you just said, at-risk Republicans need to be able to argue. Their reelection is essential for the ultimate confirmation of flight. It’s his path to retaining control of the Senate.

You said correct, plus it would prevent proof of his hypocrisy that proceeding now shows, and leaving a vacancy could also bring out voters who care about equal rights in great numbers. Young women’s rights are most at risk if Republicans ram through another 19th century.

So you must vote. The fact that we’re even talking about this. Who is this Amy? I call her Amy Coney Island. Whatever her name is. Amy Tony Barrett, I’m immature though. You don’t have to laugh. She’s liked by the religious right for her staunch opposition to abortion, her catholic faith and serving as a clerk under Scalia. How they find people that are against their own self-interest. How they can find a woman that wants to take choice away from all women?

It’s beyond me, but there you go right?

Jill Wine-Banks:

Well, it’s how they can vote in this particular time after having said there’s no way in the last year, is just it’s beyond me. I do hope that this will motivate. In the conventions the Republicans mentioned the courts and the Supreme Court many, many, times. The Democrats never did, and that was not an accident. That was deliberate. I think the Democrats were seeking to attract more moderate Republicans. Who might be disgusted with the behavior of Donald Trump, but who do believe that a conservative justice is the right thing. So they didn’t want to make too big an issue of it to turn off those potential voters.

Well now they have no choice. It is an issue, they’re going to have to talk about it. They’re, going to have to deal with it. They’re going to have to say let’s motivate the Democratic base by getting out voters who know how important the courts are. This appointment will affect the rest of us. Almost everyone who is alive today will be impacted for the rest of their lives. I suppose, newborns, maybe not, but a 6-3 conservative majority of this extraordinary size.

These are people who don’t consider the other side. They are not open to debate, they have predetermined decisions. It’s been such a terrible time for justice. Look at William Barr. At the same time.

Stephanie Miller:

He’s overdue for an impeachment. I don’t know let’s talk about real quick. First of all, let’s. Talk about Daniel Goldman said if McConnell and Trump ram through replacement, dems need to increase the number of justices to 11. If they win all three majorities. You said why 11? That leaves SCOTUS 6-5 conservative majority. Why not 13, shifting balance to 7-6? With a rational majority to protect equal rights, if McConnell succeeds, this election can be decided by a 6-3 new majority.

I agree with you, but again, I agree with Nancy Pelosi saying don’t take that arrow out of your quiver. You and I talked about, I don’t think they should have narrowed impeachment to just Ukraine. We have 10 counts, as you know, of obstruction of justice. We have Nixon times a zillion and Barr is way overdue. I agree with John Lewis, who said he was not legitimately elected. I would say all both of his picks are illegitimate.

Stephy Says -Get her book!

There’s no way we can allow this. I think by any means necessary, Jill, we have to, What do you think? Jill Wine-Banks:

I am sort of a little troubled philosophically about if we increased it to 11. Or 13, then what’s to stop the next group to make it 15 or 17? It becomes unwieldy. What we need to do is go back to more centrist people who will consider facts and evidence. Who don’t have preconceived decisions all ready to go. Another judge who’s being considered because she might attract the Cubans. She’s Cuban-American. That’s, not why we picked people for this position.

Stephanie Miller:

I know, he’s so blatant giving money to Puerto Rico now. After he insulted them and was going to sell Puerto Rico, and you know it’s like. It’s so blatant. Everything was about his re-election.

It’s just it’s so obvious.

Jill Wine-Banks:

And the enablers in the Senate. Let’s, not forget all of them, right? They enabled him. They voted not guilty, even though the evidence was clear and they knew it was clear. It wasn’t a question of saying guilty, but not impeachable. In the same way you might say guilty, but I’m letting you go because of insanity. They had to say not guilty.

Stephanie Miller:

That’s why we have to fight differently, Jill. Because, as we talk about all this, you know. Yes, Obama was decent. He waited a month after Scalia died until after the mourning. He did this, he was, you know.

Merrick Garland, as you remember, was a centrist. That was an olive branch. He was a moderate. They don’t play by any set of rules or fairness, Jill. We can’t count on them to do anything. We have to make it stop. Unfortunately, our decency sometimes is undermining us. We have to fight the way they fight now.

Jill Wine-Banks:

It is, and I’m one of those people who always says you don’t lower yourself to to their level. On the other hand, you can’t bring a knife to a gunfight.

Stephanie Miller:

No, I’m talking about what Obama said about the filibuster. I’m talking about impeachment. I’m talking about just that we use the tools we have. No, I’m not saying anything, illegal or underhanded.

Jill Wine-Banks:

I’m not either. I’m just saying that I would have preferred that we stay at the high moral ground. Now I’m beginning to think that you cannot when they are so corrupt, and so fighting dirty, and so making up the rules. That you have to play by the rules that they set.

Stephanie Miller:

We thought Hillary was going to win. We’re like, oh well, Merrick Garland, Hillary’s going to win. We can’t now go, well Biden’s going to win. We don’t. Look at this headline this morning.

DOJ: New York City is an anarchist jurisdiction. They’re, going to do everything in their power to suppress the vote. To God knows what. We have to prepare for everything in these next 40-something days, we?

Jill Wine-Banks:

Exactly, and you have the president saying he is creating a 1776 commission to create a new school curriculum that will get rid of all the leftist leanings of current education. My God are we going back to the Scopes Monkey Trial. That you can’t teach evolution?

Stephanie Miller:

They don’t think Brown versus Board of Education is settled law. They don’t think Roe v Wade is settled. I could lose my right to marry another woman before you even find that woman for me, Jill, one day.

Jill Wine-Banks:

I’m wearing a vote necklace as well. Okay, so I’m doing double duty. Today we have to vote, and voting is essential. Everyone has to have a plan and vote either by mail or in person.

iwillvote.com get it do it.

Stephanie Miller:

Jill, love you, thought of you first, last, and always when this happened. Thanks so much. Thank you for talking.

Jill Wine-Banks:

Thank you. Thank you. May we all survive this.

Stephanie Miller:

Yeah love you Jill Wine-Banks there she goes.

Jill Wine-Banks Of Nixon Impeachment Fame Talks Trump On the Stephanie Miller Show

And Here’s All My Jill Wine-Banks Posts

Stephy Says -Get her book!