Supreme Court Says It Still Can’t Figure Out Who Leaked Abortion Opinion

Topline

The Supreme Court issued a report Thursday on its investigation into who leaked a draft of its historic opinion overturning Roe v. Wade last year, saying it had not yet identified the person responsible for one of the largest breaches in modern court history, even after recent reports suggested the hunt had been narrowed down to a “small” group of potential leakers.

The U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C.

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Key Facts

The team investigating the release of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization opinion “has to date been unable to identify a person responsible by a preponderance of the evidence,” the report stated, after conducting a probe that included “diligent analysis of forensic evidence” and interviews with nearly 100 employees.

The investigation focused on court employees who had access to the draft opinion (the report did not specify if that included the nine justices), finding that 82 employees in addition to the justices had access to electronic or hard copies of the opinion and thus could have shared it.

It does not appear as though someone outside the court hacked into its IT system to get the draft opinion, the investigation found, but investigators noted some employees confessed to telling their spouses about it, and the probe didn’t rule out the possibility that a copy of the opinion was left in a public place or otherwise “inadvertently or negligently disclosed.”

The Marshal of the Supreme Court led the investigation, and the court said Michael Chertoff, a former secretary of Homeland Security, judge and U.S. attorney, reviewed the findings and determined he “cannot identify any additional useful investigative measures” that the marshal hadn’t already done.

Investigators have not yet closed the probe and are still reviewing some data, the court’s marshal reported, noting if that work “yields new evidence or leads, the investigators will pursue them.”

The report comes less than a week after the Wall Street Journal reported investigators had narrowed their investigation to a “small number of suspects,” which include law clerks who assist the justices.

Crucial Quote

“The leak was no mere misguided attempt at protest. It was a grave assault on the judicial process,” the Supreme Court report states, describing it as “one of the worst breaches of trust in [the court’s] history.”

Key Background

Politico published a leaked draft opinion in May of the Supreme Court’s opinion in the Dobbs case, which suggested the court had enough votes to overturn Roe v. Wade and end the federal right to an abortion. The leaked opinion was confirmed by the court as authentic and quickly set off a rash of protests from abortion rights advocates, even before the court’s final decision overturning Roe—which hewed closely to the leaked draft—was formally released in June. Chief Justice John Roberts swiftly called for an investigation into the leak, an incident that marked an extreme rarity for the famously secretive Supreme Court, which typically keeps its opinions under wraps and away from the press until they’re formally released. The report issued Thursday marks the first major update from the court on the probe.

Surprising Fact

Theories about who the leaker could be have proliferated since the draft was released, with court-watchers positing such possibilities as a conservative law clerk who wanted to “lock in” the votes for overturning Roe, or a liberal clerk opposed to the ruling. Investigators noted in their report that they had looked into the “wide array of public speculation” and staffers whose names had been shared on social media as potential suspects, but “found nothing to substantiate” those allegations.

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