The Hunt for the SCOTUS Leaker Is On
By: Spencer Brown
This attempt to undermine the court truly is Orwellian . It’s a blatant attempt at manipulation and disruption of the court and it’s operations. A violation of trust that can’t be repaired until all who conspired to do this are called to account and are punished.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The Hunt for the SCOTUS Leaker Is On
Source: AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib
UPDATE 11:20 a.m. —
Chief Justice John Roberts released a statement Tuesday morning confirming that the Supreme Court was launching a full, formal investigation into the source of Monday's leak of the draft opinion showing an overturn of Roe v. Wade :
To the extent this betrayal of the confidences of the Court was intended to undermine the integrity of our operations, it will not succeed. The work of the Court will not be affected in any way.
We at the Court are blessed to have a workforce – permanent employees and law clerks alike – intensely loyal to the institution and dedicated to the rule of law. Court employees have an exemplary and important tradition of respecting the confidentiality of the judicial process and upholding the trust of the Court. This was a singular and egregious breach of that trust that is an affront to the Court and the community of public servants who work here.
I have directed the Marshal of the Court to launch an investigation into the source of the leak.
JUST IN: The Supreme Court confirms the authenticity of the draft opinion revealed last night by Politico. The chief justice has ordered an investigation into the leak. pic.twitter.com/XZweHdyhCG
— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) May 3, 2022
Original Post —
In the wake of Monday night's unprecedented leak of a draft opinion from the Supreme Court suggesting the high court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, the hunt is on to find the source of the leak that destroyed the trust that's long-existed among justices and their clerks.
As our sister site RedState reported earlier, sources told CBS News that Chief Justice John Roberts is "likely" to order an investigation "involving the FBI" to track down the person or persons responsible for the leak.
This is an unprecedented leak from #SCOTUS . It raises questions about how the institution will ever recover, and how Chief Justice Roberts will respond.
Sources tonight tell @JanCBS he is likely to order a full-blown investigation, involving the FBI, to determine the source.
— Elizabeth Campbell (@ECampbell360) May 3, 2022
Megan Kelly slammed the leaker, calling them a "low-life criminal" and saying the responsible party "should lose their law license."
The pathetic spineless leak of a draft SCOTUS opinion has the feel of something a sad little woke 20-something-year-old would do. The kind of person who thinks their personal agenda is “more important.” Whoever did it should lose their law license.
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) May 3, 2022
Wonder if the leaker took into account the safety of the justices who undoubtedly were not prepared for the release of this tonight. The low-life criminal better PRAY that nothing happens to these public servants. https://t.co/o9RVmlvLpD
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) May 3, 2022
Jonathan Turley wrote early Tuesday morning about how "the damage done to the Court as an institution will likely be lasting" after the leak "shattered a long tradition of the Court of strict secrecy and integrity in the handling of drafts."
Turley also dove into how an investigation might go, and what the punishments may be for the responsible party:
The leak is the greatest crisis faced by Chief Justice John Roberts and the greatest security breach in the history of the Court.
The question is how the FBI and the Court will proceed in the investigation. Anyone taking this deeply unethical act is likely to have taken steps to hide their tracks. I would be surprised if there were a paper trail or email record. However, anyone who would take such a reckless act may have been equally reckless in the means used to violate the Court’s rules.
If the culprit is a lawyer, disbarment would seem a virtual certainty. This person may be a hero in the eyes of some, but will remain a pariah in the eyes of any ethical lawyer. Yet, disbarment could be the least of the problems. If a suspect lies to the FBI, there could be prosecution under 18 U.S.C. 1001.
Thus, the culprit will have to make a decision today of whether to radically increase the potential costs of this act. There are a relatively small number of individuals with access to these drafts. It is likely that the culprit will be contacted quickly with others by investigators. That will prove a critical moment that could transform an unethical into a criminal act.
While the FBI has a...spotty track record in recent years when it comes to closing in on suspects, it seems clear that whoever leaked the document is in for some serious career-altering punishment one way or another. Despite the cheerleading from the left for the still-unknown source of the leak, that won't be enough to save them from punishment from SCOTUS or potentially the FBI.
Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) also raised an important question about who had access to or viewed the leaked draft before POLITICO published the document. Reaction to the document from Democrats was fairly quick, including fundraising text messages from the DNC, and generally revolved around the same unhinged hyperbole.
Given the apparently coordinated nature of this hit on the Court, I certainly hope every Democrat Senator is ready to answer whether they saw the opinion before Politico published it, and if they know who leaker is
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) May 3, 2022
As Carrie Severino pointed out last night, "The forces on the radical Left that seek to undermine the institution of the Court have no limit; they will stop at nothing to get what they demand. This leak is just the latest iteration of the Left's shameful campaign to intimidate and undermine the Court, and it should be seen for exactly what it is."
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Considering the draft is from early February, it's very possible that Politico sat on it for a while and they are the leak to the Democrats which would also explain the fast reply from Democrats and the DNC. However, as far as fundraising texts, it's fairly standard to grab any "tragic" news and use the fear in a fundraising email or text. I would imagine that both parties have generic documents just sitting around waiting for the proper "tragic news" to come forth so they can copy/paste into a fundraising email.
It’s hard to know exactly when the document was discovered by the leaker or when it was leaked to Politico. Politico had to have taken some time to authenticate it before printing it almost 2 months before the decision whichever way it turns out is announced
Sounds like the bloggers are trying to force the hand of the SCOTUS by publishing this.
You've been told it's not a blog. Why do you ignore the truth?
And when did I say I cared?
Because nobody's proven as truth.
He has his own truth. [delete]
It's YOUR opinion politico isn't a group of bloggers. It's MY opinion they are. Don't get all pissy if we have differing opinions.
Now if you, or Tessy, don't like it, that is something you two need to work out on yourselves. It's really none of my concern.
When here was he told that exactly? What do you think the truth is here?
[deleted]
Government leakers and whistleblowers know that they are at risk for personal negative ramifications of what they do.
The person who leaked this should be punished, and in the meantime we should concentrate on the SC opinion ending Roe.
It’s a draft. It’s not certain that it is a final one. As to the leaker, there should be zero whistleblower protection for the person(s) involved. Whistleblower protection is for those who expose wrong doing in an agency, administration, or corporation, not for those who defy procedures over a simple disagreement regarding a legal outcome one way or the other.
It appears almost certain that it is not the final one just based on how old it is.
As things stand now, the left generally supports abortion at any age of the mother, or any stage of the pregnancy....including late term abortions. That needs to change. The15 weeks limit to getting an abortion sounds reasonable
All lies.
Such as? Who’s lying about what in your opinion?
No, I disagree. While there are some laws that seem to support abortion at any stage of the pregnancy (the latest out of California as example) that's really not what is meant and will be fixed.
But I do not agree with the 15 week limit or the so-called 'Heartbeat laws'. Survivability outside the womb I think is a better place to start.
I prefer overturning roe and not banning abortion either, leaving it to the states to decide on our federalist system and states being the laboratories of democracy
Absent Roe v Wade, that's almost certainly what the country would have settled on through the democratic process decades ago. Instead of the North Korea style abortion laws we have now, we would have ended up with laws more in line with Europe.
I’m not sure if that is really the state of things. A minority of people support that unrestricted level of regulation. Historically, in Gallup polling the percentage of people who support unrestricted abortion is at or below 30%. I don’t see them break it down by political party, though.
Marshal of the Court ... one Gail A. Curley
Hope she's not one of those LBGT-thingees!
"The forces on the radical Left that seek to undermine the institution of the Court have no limit; they will stop at nothing to get what they demand. This leak is just the latest iteration of the Left's shameful campaign to intimidate and undermine the Court, and it should be seen for exactly what it is."
Maybe you should wait before making such assertions, the leak may have come from someone on the right. Will you apologize if so?
You are confusing me with the author of the seeded article. Those are his words, not mine. I do generally agree with him though. No apologies from me.
It was actually a quote from Carrie Severino ... my apologies, but then you did pick her comment out of everything else in the article.
I did do that. The article author includes her quote in his article as his finale and I completely agree with her and her words.
The leaker is Sotomayor or Kagan.
I'd be surprised if Kagan were that dumb. She's the brains of the left and seems to have more sense.
Sotomayor on the other hand...
I wouldn’t be surprised if the try to frame Breyer for it since he’s leaving anyway and erring it on him would protect the real villains. There’s no way I’d believe he’d do that. His belief in the court and its procedures is way too strong for him to have done or condoned this.
Assuming it’s one of the clerks (I doubt very much it could be a justice), yes absolutely. However, that will only impact whatever state (or states) they are licensed in and possibly at the federal level. They could always try to get licensed in another state, though.
However it goes, I would hope their legal career is over.
The only exception I can think of would be if this was somehow an accident, or actually stolen by some outsider.