Kagan, an Obama appointee known inside the Court as a deft strategic operator, was quick to make a move. Sensing that Kavanaugh, in this vulnerable moment, might welcome allies wherever he could find them, she launched a quiet charm offensive. While he was still moving into his chambers, Kagan stopped by and offered to host a dinner party in his honor at her Washington apartment. They were seen together frequently—whispering and laughing during oral arguments or talking baseball over lunch in the justices’ private dining hall, where she liked to joke that their conversation was a reprieve from the Shakespearean forays favored by Kavanaugh’s predecessor, Anthony Kennedy. “She saw him as up for grabs,” said one person with knowledge of the Court’s internal dynamics. The other liberal women on the bench followed Kagan’s lead. Sonia Sotomayor gave an interview in which she welcomed Kavanaugh’s arrival: “This is our work family, and it’s just as important as our personal family.” Ruth Bader Ginsburg praised her new colleague at an event in Washington as “very decent and very smart.” These comments upset some on the left, but they had a strategic purpose. The liberal justices knew Kavanaugh wouldn’t vote with them on a regular basis, but they hoped they could pick off his vote occasionally, when it mattered. Having a relationship would help. Clarence Thomas, meanwhile, was running his own game. Though he had refused to watch the hearings on principle, he felt he understood better than most what Kavanaugh had gone through.