The results are in! The Supreme Court has finally concluded its investigation into who leaked the draft of Justice Samuel Alitoโs opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.
Suggested Reading
Personally, I had my bets on Representative George Santos (mostly for the plot). But as it turns out weโre all going to have to live with not knowing. On Thursday, the Supreme Court announced that they were โunable to identify a person responsible by a preponderance of the evidence.โ
Supreme Court Marshall Gail Curley, who was running the investigation, told NBC News that 97 court employees were interviewed, but everyone denied being the leaker. Itโs unclear if any of the Supreme Court Justices were interviewed in this process.
The leak, which was published in Politico in May, sent shockwaves through Washington. Not only was the Supreme Court clearly prepared to overturn decades of precedent protecting the right to an abortion; a leak like this had never occurred in the courtโs modern history.
Chief Justice John Roberts called the leak a โbetrayal,โ before appointing an investigator.
Despite Roberts clear frustration over the leak, on Twitter some folks have questioned whether weโve learned the whole truth.
โI told everybody, from the very beginning, that if the Dobbs leaker turned out to be a Republican, the Supreme Court would somehow never find who did it. Welp, the reportโs out and, what do you know, they donโt know who did it,โ tweeted the Nationโs legal correspondent Elie Mystal.
At the time, it was hard to pin-point the exact motivations for the leak. There were compelling reasons for both sides to try to get out ahead of the decision.
Conservatives could have wanted to make it difficult for Roberts or other on-the-fence Justices to say no without appearing like they wereย caving to public backlash against the leak.
Liberals could have wanted to push conservatives into a corner by showing that overturning Roe would hurt public confidence in the court.
Either way, it looks like weโll just have to accept the conclusion of this very anti-climactic rendition of who dโun it. That is unless someone wants to give us a tip!
Straight From
Sign up for our free daily newsletter.