Whoever leaked the draft SCOTUS decision to overturn Roe v. Wade threw away a really promising career and, sooner or later, the culprit will be caught. So far, nobody has the guts to come forward and admit that they did it. As long as the rat thinks they can get away with it, they’ll keep their silence. The scary part is that a whole herd of clerks decided it might be a good idea to lawyer up in defensive mode.
SCOTUS on a serious rat hunt
All nine of the high Justices collectively gracing the bench as SCOTUS are unanimous in their anger and highly opinionated about their sense of betrayal. That’s why Supreme Court officials “are escalating their search for the source of the leaked draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade,” CNN reports.
The rat or rats are scurrying for holes in the woodwork. The next step in the probe will be a requirement for all the “law clerks to provide cell phone records and sign affidavits.” That leak came into the CNN studio from three different directions at once.
Some clerks, the liberal outlet gasps, “are apparently so alarmed over the moves, particularly the sudden requests for private cell data, that they have begun exploring whether to hire outside counsel.”
As the ones who do the legal legwork for SCOTUS, the guilty ones should be alarmed. The leak is nearly unprecedented and the court’s response is just as distinctive.
As CNN writes, “the court’s moves are unprecedented and the most striking development to date in the investigation into who might have provided Politico with the draft opinion it published on May 2.”
The conservative five member SCOTUS majority are all set to “roll back a half-century of abortion rights and privacy protections.” They wanted to wait until it could be done quietly, after the mid-terms. A leaker decided that timetable wouldn’t work well for Democrats.
Grilled by Justice Roberts
Another thing that leaked out to CNN is that Chief Justice John Roberts called each and every one of the clerks in to his office for a personal interrogation. “It is not known whether any systematic individual interviews have occurred.”
Lawyers with their ears to the wall “have become aware of the new inquiries related to cell phone details.” They aren’t sure if SCOTUS has the authority to intrude on the personal activities of their clerks.
That has the whole office nervous. “Irrespective of any disclosure to the news media,” they say they feel “the need to obtain independent counsel.” Lawyering up just to be on the safe side seems to be the trending thing inside the beltway, these days.
“That’s what similarly situated individuals would do in virtually any other government investigation,” an appellate lawyer informs. SCOTUS clerks aren’t any different. “It would be hypocritical for the Supreme Court to prevent its own employees from taking advantage of that fundamental legal protection.”
CNN’s three pet rats haven’t seen “the exact language of the affidavits” and aren’t sure what will be involved in the cell phone search. SCOTUS isn’t talking either. CNN gave them a call and nobody jingled back.
Everybody in the district knows that each year’s crop of fresh law clerks “are regarded as the elite of the elite.” With four on the team of each justice, more or less, they “are overwhelmingly graduates of Ivy League law schools and have had prior clerkships with prominent US appellate court judges.”
