Way back in 2014 , I wrote about a very special clerk tree. A young John Roberts clerked for Chief Justice Rehnquist in 1981 when Dames & Moore v. Regan was decided. And a young William Rehnquist clerked for Justice Jackson in 1952 when Youngstown was decided. The linkage of those Justices, and cases, seemed profound. In Bank Markazi , Chief Justice Roberts corrected Justice Ginsburg's account of Dames & Moore .

(Roberts's co-clerks were Dean C. Colson and Robert B. Knauss .)

For some time, I wondered what Roberts actually contributed to the Dames & Moore decision.

In 2017, I emailed Lyle Denniston about the drafting of the opinion. He sent back a fairly detailed response, which I have uploaded here . In a follow-up email, Lyle said that Roberts likely had "minimal" input on the opinion

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