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What happened to the investigation into who leaked Supreme Court Justice Alito’s draft opinion on Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health? The unprecedented breach sparked massive protests, due to the opinion showing the Court was ready to overturn the landmark abortion ruling from Roe v. Wade. It even led to Congress passing a bill to bolster security for members of the Court and their families. Despite this, the American people have heard little to nothing about the progress of the probe. Straight Arrow News contributor Ben Weingarten says the lack of transparency threatens to cause permanent damage to the Supreme Court’s reputation.
Now the universe of people who could have obtained and leaked the opinion – described as “a person familiar with the court’s proceedings” in the Dobbs case – is small. If the Court doesn’t know by now who leaked it, isn’t this rank incompetence? If the Court does know who leaked it but is sitting on it, how could we see this as anything but political?
What could be more important to protecting the Court’s integrity and credibility than to show it has zero tolerance for and will stop at nothing to punish the person responsible for such a devastating attack on the Court’s ability to do its most basic duty–deliberately, discreetly, and insulated from political pressure and intimidation?
Silence on the probe only compounds the error of not ruling immediately in the wake of the leak, which fueled — what else — but a campaign of political pressure and intimidation, including an assassination plot against Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Does the Chief Justice, so attuned to public opinion about the Court, think the probe can be dismissed as some kind of internal matter to be handled privately and to fade away? Are one or more justices involved in the leak? Could that explain Roberts’ silence?
The longer he keeps mum, the greater the speculation will grow.
