Supreme Court Leaks

The Wall Street Journal excerpted an article by Joan Biskupic for CNN regarding Supreme Court discussions among the Justices [emphasis added].

Chief Justice John Roberts privately lobbied fellow conservatives to save the constitutional right to abortion down to the bitter end, but May’s unprecedented leak of a draft opinion reversing Roe v Wade made the effort all but impossible, multiple sources familiar with negotiations told CNN.

Wow. Not only was a Supreme Court draft opinion leaked to the press, the Court’s private discussions about that opinion are leaked to the public.

Two things: one is that the Court has a serious problem with confidentiality, and the only way to fix it may be a complete removal and replacement of all of the Justices’ current clerks and of all of the Court’s current administrative personal. Even though the clerks are replaced annually as a matter of course, it’s clear that this crop needs to go now.

The other thing is that it’s instructive about press integrity that the press makes nearly as big a deal about the leak of the draft as it did about the draft, but it accepts this leak with utter equanimity.

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