Peggy Nienaber, the vice president of Liberty Counsel — which describes itself as a “nonprofit ministry that operates a pro-litigation program” — was heard in a video posted on YouTube boasting that her organization prays with justices on the high court. “We’re the only people doing this,” Rolling Stone reported Nienaber told a YouTuber at an event celebrating the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Although an amicus brief written by Liberty Counsel was cited by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority in its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last month, the organization denies close ties to the justices. “The Rolling Stone article is false. The writers know it is false, but chose to print the sensational story anyway. Since Liberty Counsel took over the prayer ministry in 2018, now called Faith & Liberty, there has been no prayer with the Justices,” read a statement from Liberty Counsel in response to the report. “Faith & Liberty prays for the Judges, not with them.” In the YouTube video, Nienaber can be heard saying she is praying with the justices “right here on Capitol Hill.” Supreme Court spokespeople did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment. Similarly, Rob Schenck, an evangelical minister and leader of a group called Faith and Action, told Politico that, between 1995 and 2018, he arranged for nearly two dozen couples to fly to Washington to share expensive dinners and nights out with Supreme Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and the late Antonin Scalia. The dinner program was called “Operation Supreme Court,” and Schenck told Politico that he would guide the couples in discussing conservative issues with the justices, while taking care not to specifically mention current affairs. “We would rehearse like, ‘We think you’re here for a moment like this,’” Schenck told Politico. Schenck’s ties to the Supreme Court — as well as “Operation Higher Court” and his efforts to discuss religious and conservative issues with the justices — are well documented. A couple he mentored to discuss his conservative views with the justices, Don and Gail Wright of Dayton, Ohio, went on to form long-term relationships with some of the justices — who are listed in Don’s obituary. In a 2001 article in the Christian magazine Charisma, titled “Storming the capitol (sic) with prayer,” he described a meeting and prayer with the late Justice Scalia hours after the Supreme Court issued his ruling on the controversial presidential election of 2000. . “The Supreme Court is the most isolated and secluded branch of the American government,” Schenck said in the 2001 article. “They don’t interact with the public, so we literally had to pray in there every step of the way.”
