Thomas B. Griffith

He described her as, quote, "A good law student and a genuinely good person," but he couldn't say whether the press secretary technically qualifies as an attorney, and he does point out that there are well-respected legal scholars who have not passed the bar.

Now we've got a judge, uh, a George W. Bush appointee, Judge Thomas Griffith.

He's on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C.

Circuit.

Later in the hour, ICL- ACLU of Iowa attorney Shefali Aurora will join us to talk about the Satanic Temple's lawsuit over the Iowa Capitol Rotunda.

Remember that from a few years ago? Also, retired Judge Thomas Griffith joins us to talk about pluralism and Iowa's religious freedom law.

Let's start with our good friend Karen Kedrowski.

She teaches political science at Iowa State, uh, directs its Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics, co-directs the Center for Cyclone Civics.

I'm Ben Kiefer.

Religious freedom and the Constitution in our focus today ahead of a symposium at Iowa State on Thursday.

Judge Thomas Griffith sat on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit from 2005 until 2020.

Today, he teaches at Harvard Law School.

All right, David, shall we introduce our guest for today, Professor Sherif Girgis of Notre Dame Law School.

He clerked for Judge Tom Griffith on the DC Circuit, who is a friend of the pod and was on quite recently, and then he clerked for Justice Sam Alito.

He is a friend of the pod, but we really need someone To be defense counsel for Justice Alito as his new book comes out, So Ordered.

He has given long interviews, but more importantly, he wrote this op-ed in The Wall Street Journal about originalism and about his version of originalism, and you and I need to go through it, I mean, nearly line by line.

I don't think you could have a president appointing an inspector general for the judiciary.

That'd get a little fishy, uh, from separation of powers issues, but have it, have Roberts appoint, you know, I don't know, Tom Griffith, Mike McConnell, Greg Costa, Paul Watford, you know, former judge-

Right, one of these respected former federal judges

... who's hanging out doing their thing.