Scenes from Aaron Sorkin’s Netflix Original “Justice in the Mail”
Int. Home office of former President Barack Obama.
Jamie Foxx-type (or just Jamie Foxx) plus a liberal amount of gray hair dye sits with his feet up on an impressive desk in a tan suit, looking out his window. On his desktop monitor we see an MSNBC headline about a post-election Supreme Court legal battle. The President’s expression conveys a desire to do even more for America. Suddenly, a phone rings and the President’s assistant, Moxy, enters the room. (Think a Zoey Deschanel type or just Zooey Deschanel).
Moxy: Mr. President. It’s the Biden campaign. Laurence Tribe has laryngitis. They need a lawyer to argue their case before the Supreme Court. Someone to fight Dershowitz, Guiliani and Trump from halting the counting of paper ballots.
Obama: But I’m no lawyer . . .
Moxy: Sir, respectfully, you’re more than a lawyer. You were a Constitutional Law Professor and isn’t that what’s really on trial here? The sanctity of the Constitution itself?
Obama: Well, you’re a former election law specialist who left her career to be my assistant. You should argue it.
Moxy: Sure, I’ve got 20 years experience in appellate elections law, and have authored 30 articles on the constitutionality of mail-in voting, but Sir, my joy as a smart, funny, woman with slightly unconventionally good looks comes from understanding and enabling the more masculine components of the meritocracy inherent in the American bureaucratic machine.
Obama: So you’ll be preparing the opening statement?
Moxy: I could, but sometimes I help men most just by telling a cute joke. Why do they only eat one egg in France?
Obama: Yeah, I heard that one, but I don’t know if I should take on the role of lawyer in … Moxy: BECAUSE ONE EGG’S UN OEUF!
Obama gives a little chuckle, shakes his head, and then takes his feet from the desk and stands. Obama: O.K., Get me a tie. We’ve got work to do!
Moxy: (saluting) Yes, Mr. President!
Obama: And that opening statement in the next hour. Like seriously.
Int. Library of Congress. Midnight. Night before oral argument.
Obama having dismissed his security detail, walks the halls alone calling on the voices of his Country’s forefathers to guide him. Portraits of Lincoln, Washington, watch over. Suddenly Obama sees a portrait of George W. Bush.
Obama: (shaking his head) We had disagreements, but it was never like this, huh buddy? A wise, old Mexican immigrant security guard walks up behind the President.
Guard: Si, Mr. President. Don’t you agree Bush v. Gore had a civility our modern discourse sorely lacks?
Obama: Well said. Working late, friend?
Guard: I work this shift every night. I’ve needed the second job since my wife was deported.
Obama: Trump?
Guard: Si, si. I mean, I assume so, it was back in 2015, but who would deport Mexicans in massive numbers but a Republican?
Obama walks over to the framed constitution behind glass. Think National Treasure or just footage from National Treasure spliced in.
Obama: This is what it’s all about, isn’t it? But do you think I have a chance in a Court filled with Republicans?
Guard: Y’know Mr. President, let me tell you a story. One day when I was a little boy in Mexico, my mother was making some chorizo and eggs. There were ten of us but my mother would only use one egg. One day, I say mama, we are so many, why you only use one egg? And do know know what she say to me?
Obama: What?
Guard: She say, “Ernesto, because we only have un heuvo!”
Obama: I don’t get it.
Guard: It’s not a joke. We were starving. (Quietly) My wife’s back there now with one of our two boys..
Obama: Y’know, that’s what it’s all about! People like you, Ernesto. Taking power back from a bully, bigot, two bit dictator and restoring it to a system that knows how to deport, side with law and order, fight for pipelines while maintaining wars for oil and security, and giving citibank the right to pick its cabinet, but having the good decency not to tweet about it.
Guard: That’s right, Mr. President. You remind all those Republican Judges of all the things we still have in common. All the crossover and how this machine we call American politics is more
than a suffering factory. It’s a purifier, and when it’s working right, it takes all the ego and coarseness of blatant fascism and it processes it into practical policies of necessary governance. Sure, some of those policies might not go down as smooth as others, but, y’know, once it goes through that bipartisan purifier of the educated and well-intended, much like the water in Flint, Michigan, it’s not going to make you sick!
Obama: Again, really well said. And if I’m hearing you correctly, you’re saying America needs a return to everything that brought us to this pivotal moment in the first place except without the mean tweets.
Guard: Si, no more tweets, Mr. President.
Obama: Because Justice should never have a character limit!
Guard: Good one, Mr. President.
Obama: Just something the Pod Save America boys shot over.
Guard: (Lifts screwdriver) Let me give you something for luck tomorrow . . .
Int. Supreme Court. Morning.
All Repubican Justices are played by Paul Giamatti types or Paul Giamatti except Kristin Wiig type as Amy Coney Barret. President Obama is standing at a lecturn. Moxy’s at the desk behind him. To one corner of the desk is the constitution still behind glass, metal edges worse for wear from the night before. To the left, a tiny framed portrait of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Guiliani and Dershowtiz are hunched over at the other desk.
Obama: Your Honors, you sit here today with perhaps the greatest decision of your lives. Bigger than Roe v. Wade. Bigger than Citizens United. Today you decide whether or not America is still a democracy. Is it a country where someone can boldly declare victory prematurely and incorrectly like …
Justice Kavanaugh: (interrupting) Pete Buttigieg? “Oooooohs” from spectators.
Obama: No, your Honor, I was going to say a two bit bully like Donald Trump, not a CIA operative! I mean former Indiana Governor.
Justice Alito: Mr. President, if the method for counting mail-in ballots is not accurate or cannot be guaranteed to produce a verifiable result then wouldn’t we be upholding democracy by refusing to allow such flawed practices to determine our election?
Dershowitz: Point of clarification, your Honors. Is President Obama arguing American law, Sharia law, or Kenyan law?
Camera cuts to Stephen Miller giggling in the audience. Chief Justice Roberts quiets the courtroom with his gavel and shares a look with Amy Coney Barret that seems to convey, “Hey, although we are deeply conservative we know a court of law is no place for rude jokes.”)
Obama: Thank you, your Honor. There is no reason to believe the mail-in ballots are unreliable. That’s based in pure speculation, and if it would convince this Court, I’d be happy to take a tiny sip from one of these contested ballots to put all your minds to rest.
Justice Roberts: That won’t be necessary, Mr. President, please continue.
Obama: So I see the nine of you up there. Nine Americans. Nine Justices. Nine keepers of the Constitution and I hear you. I hear you asking me why count all the votes? Why count all the votes you ask? Because every vote counts!
Camera pans back to desk, CGI Ruth Bader Ginsburg picture seems to smile. Moxy whispers to it, “I wrote that part.” Guiliani stands.
Guilliani: Your Honors, this is absurd! The ballots are fraudulent. The election results are fake, and with all due respect, he may be the former President of the United States, but Counselor Obama is one bad egg!
Obama: I resent that, your Honors. But if you won’t listen to me then maybe you should be listening to someone else. A woman. A woman of tremendous legal wisdom, and a true inspiration to me.
Moxy slowly stands, but just then, the back doors of the courtroom are thrown open and Kamala Harris marches in to stand by Obama’s side. Moxy quietly sits back down.
Kamala: Well if President Obama’s a bad egg, then I am too because, your Honors . . . sometimes one egg just ain’t enough!
Moxy whispers to the RBG photo, sadly, “I wrote that too.”
Kamala: In closing, your Honors, let me say it a different way. Why count all the votes? Because every vote counts!
Guiliani clutches his heart and falls to the floor. Dershowitz uses the distraction to scratch into the Constitution, “Alan Dershowitz will never go to Epstein Island in 200 years, Sincerely, Thomas Jefferson,” but it’s all over. Judge Roberts delivers a unanimous verdict that every ballot is to be counted.
Elon Musk Moon Colony. Int. Obama Residence. 2025
President Obama, Moxy by his side, looks out of his Moon Unit, staring out at the Earth, still visibly on fire all this distance away.
Moxy: Pennsylvania was sooooo close, Mr. President. I thought Biden had it for sure.
Obama: Well, no one can say we didn’t do everything we could. Moxy: Within the confines of respectable governmental action. Obama: Goes without saying.
