The Scheme - by Sheldon Whitehouse & Jennifer Mueller

Book Synopsis

"A damning investigation of dark money by a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee" (Kirkus Reviews) with a new preface on recent disclosures about efforts to influence the Court

"There's no senator I can think of who's done more sleuthing to figure out the money trail in American politics, particularly as it affects the courts."-Jane Mayer, author of the national bestseller Dark Money

As the story of Supreme Court malfeasance and ethics violations repeatedly makes front-page news, the paperback version of The Scheme comes at a time of crisis for the American judiciary.

Following his book Captured on corporate capture of regulatory and government agencies, and his years of experience as a prosecutor, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, whom Senator Elizabeth Warren calls a "a powerful voice in defending our American democracy against the relentless, pervasive--and often hidden--power of corporate special interests," here turns his attention to the right-wing scheme to capture the United States Supreme Court. Whitehouse chronicles a hidden-money campaign using an armada of front groups, helped by the infamous Citizens United Supreme Court decision, employing the Federalist Society as an appointments turnstile, and with the same small handful of right-wing billionaires and corporations enticing the Senate to break rules, norms, and precedents to confirm wildly inappropriate nominees who would advance their anti-government agenda.

Now available in an affordable paperback edition with a new preface addressing the Reverend Schenck disclosures about politicking the justices and Justice Thomas's recently disclosed conflicts of interest, The Scheme offers what Kirkus Reviews calls "a maddening indictment of a corrupt and corrupted judiciary."

Review Quotes

Praise for The Scheme:
"Chapter and verse on how the U.S. Supreme Court was 'captured.'"
-The Boston Globe

"An alarming . . . account of efforts to install conservative judges on the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary. . . . Whitehouse gathers copious evidence and strikes a fiery tone."
--Publishers Weekly

"A damning investigation of dark money by a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee."
--Kirkus Reviews

"A harrowing account of how right-wing billionaires and business interests have worked to capture the American judiciary--all the way up to the Supreme Court--to create an American plutocracy. Anyone who cares about the future of American democracy--indeed, the future of America, writ large--needs to read this book."
--Naomi Oreskes, professor of the history of science, Harvard University, and author of Merchants of Doubt

About the Author

Sheldon Whitehouse represents Rhode Island in the U.S. Senate. He has served as his state's United States Attorney and as the state Attorney General, as well as its top business regulator. The author of Captured and The Scheme (both from The New Press), he lives in Newport, Rhode Island.
Jennifer Mueller is a writer based in Washington, DC. She has worked on issues related to campaign finance and political participation as an attorney, academic, and consultant for more than twenty years. She is the co-author (with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse) of The Scheme: How the Right Wing Used Dark Money to Capture the Supreme Court (The New Press).