In February, the Supreme Court drafted an opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, only to see the draft leak in May.
Thirty days later, the court marshal is still searching for the leaker. The court is taking unprecedented moves to ramp up its search… and the liberal media are eating their words.
Court officials are preparing requirements for the clerks to sign affidavits disclose their cell phone records, three insiders told CNN on Wednesday.
Some clerks, shocked by the marshal’s tall order, are gearing up to hire their own lawyers, according to CNN. Evidently, they’re worried about invasions of privacy.
In the immediate aftermath of the leak, some pro-choice figures chided the conservative media for focusing too much on the leak of the draft, as opposed to the contents of the draft.
“I think someone did some math that Fox News this morning mentioned the leak more than they mentioned what was leaked,” the columnist Jane Coaston, a registered Libertarian, said on a podcast for The New York Times last month.
Yet, by supercharging a monthlong investigation, the court marshal seems to be treating the leak as a security risk worthy of the court’s attention.
The court marshal, former Army lawyer Col. Gail Curley, manages the police force at the Supreme Court building. As part of her job, she opens the court’s oral arguments by banging a gavel and shouting “Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!”
Chief Justice John Roberts first ordered the search.
“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,” Roberts wrote in a press release. “I have directed the Marshal of the Court to launch an investigation into the source of the leak.”
Roberts himself met with some clerks after the leak, according to CNN. It remains unconfirmed whether or not he was interviewing the clerks as part of the investigation.
The court has apparently failed to find the leaker so far, since it’s continuing the investigation. It even remains unclear whether the draft was leaked by a Democrat or a Republican.
Some observers, like the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, have characterized law clerks as quietly influential.
Others, like CNN legal commentator Jeffrey Toobin, have disputed this characterization. According to Toobin’s book The Nine, the clerks merely review petitions, brief their bosses and draft the justices’ opinions.
Each of the nine justices usually employs four clerks per year.
The Horn editorial team