The Senate Subcommittee on Investigations initially retained Boston lawyer Samuel Sears as counsel, but Sears resigned when questions arose regarding his impartiality. After an exhaustive search, the committee chose Jenkins as counsel, based in part on a recommendation by Congressman Howard Baker Sr., a former classmate of Jenkins. The committee's minority (Democratic) party members retained as counsel Robert F. Kennedy. The committee was chaired by Senator Karl Mundt, whom Jenkins would later describe as a "slave driver" who would call all hours of the night. Jenkins' role in the hearings required him to both question "and" cross-examine witnesses, as though he was both defense attorney and prosecutor. This role particularly caught Stevens (the first to be examined) off guard. His initial questioning of Stevens was congenial, provoking constant laughter from the chamber. Then, as McCarthy biographer Lately Thomas explained, "the big, rangy Tennessean, with unruly hair and underslung jaw, changed his manner as he bore down on the well-meaning but ineffective Army head." His suddenly aggressive cross-examination prompted numerous objections from Stevens' counsel, Joseph Welch, and numerous interruptions from McCarthy. At the end of the hearings, Mundt tasked Jenkins with condensing the hearings' 72-volume transcript for the committee to form its report. In his memoirs, Jenkins blasted the committee's final report, which all but cleared McCarthy and criticized (but excused) the actions of Stevens, calling it a "whitewash" in regard to the former and "doubletalk" in regard to the latter. Jenkins thought the hearings clearly showed that both figures had committed "impugnable acts." The committee's minority party report, prepared by Kennedy, condemned the actions of both McCarthy and Stevens. Jenkins endorsed this report, stating in his memoirs he would have "voted for that verdict wholeheartedly." He also praised Kennedy as a person, calling him "a man of impeccable character, above everything low or venal." In 1954, shortly after the Army-McCarthy Hearings, Jenkins joined the team to defend Clarice Kidd Shoemaker, a Scott County woman accused of killing her husband in a jealous rage. The prosecutor was future senator Howard Baker Jr., who according to Jenkins, "presented brilliantly" the case against Shoemaker. Jenkins grilled the dead man's mistress on the stand, read aloud to the jury a passionate letter she had written him, and painted her as a ruthless homewrecker. Following Shoemaker's tearful testimony, she was promptly acquitted.