The Great Paper Caper
Jill Lepore on the theft of Justice Felix Frankfurter’s papers from the Library of Congress and how it changed the history of the U.S. Supreme Court.
"Operation Frustrate the Historians," Hugo Black's children called it, as the sky filled with ashes the day they made their bonfire. The papers of Supreme Court Justices are private property. They can shred them, burn them, use them as placemats. The Federal Records Act specifically excludes the Supreme Court.