Jim Comey & Me
When I weaponized the IRS
June, 1982—Washington, DC: I remember my first meeting with Sheldon “Shelly” Cohen as if it were yesterday, though it was 41 years ago. I'd reached out to him through my father (they were partners on a real estate project at 20th & K Streets) because, like Jim Comey (whom I’d yet to meet, and against whom I didn’t know I was competing), I was one of 500 anxious applicants assigned to the University of Chicago Law School’s Purgatory List for its 1982 entering cohort, and Admissions had invited Jim, me and the 498 others to provide any additional information we felt might help us stand out. Seventy applicants had already been accepted into the 170-student incoming class, a few thousand had received the slender Rejection Envelope (as had I from Harvard, Yale & Stanford)…and the School said it wanted to make sure it picked the best possible 20% from The List.
That’s when the knives came out…
I don’t know what other materials Jim submitted, if any, but what I was after was for Shelly to write an emphatic, maybe even ominous-sounding letter to Admissions extolling my fictionalized virtues (made easier given the fact that Shelly and I had never met). Better still, I hoped Shelly might put in a call to the dean of Admissions, Richard ”The Badge” Badger.
Why did I enlist Shelly? Because he’d been LBJ’s IRS Commissioner. Also, having been mentored by the legendary U.S. Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas, he knew how to construct an argument, even for the most hopeless of cases.
The Commish got ahold of The Badge, and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
That’s how I joined Jim, and we both studied under the remarkable Edward Hirsch Levi.
There’s a lot of talk these days about how America is staring into the abyss. Similar things were said 50 years ago. But Edward Levi led us away from the abyss…
He’s best known as the U.S. Attorney General who “saved the Republic” in the wake of Watergate. He was a meticulously non-partisan public servant and judicial arbiter of Right versus Wrong, as attested by the fact that Levi angered as many of his fellow Republicans as he did Democrats. President Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, called Levi “the perfect choice for Attorney General…the perfect choice,” after whom he aspired to model his own tenure in office.
However, in the main, Levi didn’t incite anger. He commanded deep respect.
He did more than scrupulously repair our badly frayed body politic. In 1937, just one year after being appointed Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, he broke with tradition by launching an ingenious course, which changed the way first-year students were taught. During World War Two, his research helped the U.S. plan B-24 Liberator bombing runs so as to cripple German industry, but avoid civilian casualties. Later, he returned to Chicago as a full Professor, then wrote his influential An Introduction to Legal Reasoning…then became dean of the Law School…then the first Jewish president of a major American university…
Then he was asked to clean up the Watergate mess.
How did Edward Levi repair our democracy? Who and what fashioned him into such a principled leader?
I’m no Levi scholar. (His University of Chicago papers are in 441 boxes.) But, as he did Jim, Professor Levi taught me “Elements of the Law.” Whereas the first course almost every other U.S. law school taught was “Constitutional Law,” in the midst of The Great Depression, Levi introduced an inspired course that dug deeply into our foundational document’s diverse, interdisciplinary root system, pulling in economics, anthropology, sociology, political theory, and psychology—I.e., the raw ingredients of our constitutional democracy. This great man’s teaching me the very course he’d invented 45 years prior was an honor, and planted in me a love of the classics that’s only grown stronger over the years. Also, when I worked for his successor dean, Norval Morris, my matchbox-size office was just down the hall from Levi’s. I also used to run into him at the Quadrangle Club, where Dean Morris used to throttle me in tennis, and the faculty hung out, played bridge, read German and French papers and magazines, and, more than anything else—argued (good-naturedly, most of the time). So while I don’t purport to be an authority on this remarkable leader, I do feel I have a fairly good idea of what made him tick. I discern five formative principles.
Principle 1. Humanity can and should unite over ethics—not religion.
Levi’s main philosophical influence was Reform (aka “Liberal” or “Progressive”) Judaism. His mother, Elsa, came from a long line of rabbis, and before his father, Gerson, emigrated to Chicago to become the chief rabbi at Temple Israel, he was a leading rabbi in Scotland. Edward Levi’s grandfather, Emil Gustave Hirsch, and great-grandfather, David Einhorn, were both leaders of American Reform Judaism…which, at its core, emphasizes the ethical over the theistic and ceremonial…and empirically moored human reason over the mysteries pertaining to Mount Sinai. Levi’s brand of Judaism was buttressed by the humanistic principles of one of the greatest minds of the last 400 years: Scotland’s David Hume.
Principle 2. Even if you didn’t break it—try to fix it.
Tikkun olam is central to Judaism, especially the more liberal and progressive Reform strains. The Hebrew translates into “repairing of the world.” Levi had nothing to do with Watergate or the breakdown in governmental ethics. But he still felt obligated to help repair the damage.
Principle 3. Women deserve an equal say and stake in society.
It wasn't lost on Levi that his mother’s side of the family produced so many leaders. Reform Judaism was the first major denomination to embrace and adopt gender equality in religious life. It did so in 1846, in Germany…74 years before the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gave women the right to vote. (The Equal Rights Amendment passed Congress in 1972 but was never ratified, so it never became the law of the land.)
One of my heroes and most vivid memories of Watergate was Barbara Jordan. What a brilliant orator and dignified leader! The Democratic member of Congress was the sort of leader with whom Attorney General Levi could find common cause…and work in a truly non-partisan fashion.
Principle 4. As everyone is equal, no one is above the law.
Despots come in many forms—kings, Jacobins, Church Inquisitors. Young Edward was taught that humans make the laws and they can also change them. But there are proper mechanisms for change: the ballot box, legislation, the Constitution, the Amendment process, the courts. The key American innovation was the primacy of laws—as promulgated by the people. Once hammered out in a democratic manner, laws can’t be autocratically or capriciously abrogated. Governance by the guillotine is neither ethical nor sustainable.
Principle 5. Early education is the key to the health of any great civilization.
When I was six, I was learning how to finger-paint and manage my cubbyhole. At the same age, Edward was probably learning about the causes of The French Revolution. So he knew that in 1973 the United States was still young: not even 200 years old. Poland was 800 years old…and the Jews, though a scattered and wandering people, had cohered for 3,300 years. Levi knew Watergate was bad alright but he cautioned against overreacting…assuring Americans that the Constitution was a robust societal anchor.
This principle was doubly rooted. First, in the emphasis Judaism has always placed on education, especially ethics. “When a child begins to speak,” goes the saying, “the father should begin teaching him verses of Torah.” (The Reform tradition added that the mother should also teach, and the daughter, study.) Second, by witnessing first-hand how even kids as young as 6 could and should learn from Nobel laureates; indeed, that’s arguably a much better time, when minds are sponges, and haven’t yet been incorrigibly biased by this or that ideological silo. Levi also channeled his belief in the power of early education onto the board of The MacArthur Foundation, where he helped identify and fund young geniuses across the interdisciplinary spectrum.
I remember meeting with Professor Levi in his modest office in 1983. His courteous and mild manner belied his fierce intellect and rock-solid convictions. I’d wanted to know why he only gave me a 79 on my Elements of the Law final, one point shy of an A. As he patiently walked me through my blue book exam answers and explained the differences between the “ideal answers” and mine—I quickly realized he’d been very generous in giving me a 79, as opposed to a 59.
This partly explains why Chicago’s Law School faculty likes to say: “Elements is the class you take first but understand last.” It also partly explains why the U.S. Justice Department commemorated the 30th anniversary of Levi’s appointment as Attorney General by creating the Edward H. Levi Award for Outstanding Professionalism and Exemplary Integrity….
Is Edward Levi’s leadership style still relevant? Yes! Now more than ever!
But is it possible? Yes—provided we embrace Levi’s elements of the law, most especially the cornerstone: namely, that true justice is about reconciliation, not retribution. Abraham Lincoln understood this about our country, as did Nelson Mandela, about his. However, like Lincoln and Mandela, Levi also knew that true justice was impossible without truth…a concept that governed the proceedings at Appomattox Courthouse as well as of The Truth and Reconciliation Commission…and, hopefully, can govern America in the years ahead.
Thank you, Professor Levi, for being such a selfless leader, and for showing that the best way to use our swords is to beat them into ploughshares that we can all use…as we work together in service of the Greater Good.
References and Recommended Viewing & Reading:
Restoring Justice after Scandal
The Man Who Should Be Merrick Garland’s Role Model
Why We Love Elements of the Law
A wonderful tribute!