An internal communication from Chief Justice John Roberts to his colleagues in the Supreme Court was leaked to the press, the Washington Examiner reported. This is the second time such a breach has occurred at the high court.
On Sunday, the New York Times published an article titled "How Roberts Shaped Trump’s Supreme Court Winning Streak." The leftist hit piece insinuated Roberts was in Trump's pocket after three decisions went the former president's way.
However, the piece also included information from a Feb. 22 memo Roberts penned to the eight other justices on the court. The missive followed a decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit regarding former President Donald Trump's federal election interference trial.
Roberts said the decision made by the court was "inadequate and poorly reasoned" in the memo. "I think it likely that we will view the separation of powers differently," he wrote, according to the Times.
Perhaps this second leak points to a troubling trend at the high court. The first leak came in 2022 when the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization draft opinion was leaked to the press before it was finalized.
The decision would lead to the overturning of the Roe v. Wade decision that had granted abortion rights via judicial fiat. Dobbs erased nearly half a century of bad precedent, but the document's premature release was even more remarkable.
No other decision in the Supreme Court's 235-year history has ever been made public before it was supposed to. The Supreme Court's marshal questioned nearly 100 employees of the court and sifted through forensic evidence to no avail.
"But the team has to date been unable to identify a person responsible by a preponderance of the evidence," the final report noted in January 2023. Speculating who could be responsible for these two leaks is nearly unthinkable.
The eight-month probe came up empty, though many believed it was one of the four clerks assigned to each judge. However, if it's the same person or persons, that would be unlikely considering each justice receives a new slate of clerks every term.
It's unknown what the motives of the person or persons behind these leaks are. However, in both instances, these actions have real-world ramifications beyond the contents of a memo or draft decision.
South Texas College of Law professor Josh Blackman believes that the second leak has caused the most harm. In a blog post published to The Volokh Conspiracy on Sunday, he said the Times received the memo as well as insider information about the court's workings on these cases.
"This tapestry would require insights from so many different people. Moreover, all of this comes after the Dobbs leak when Chief Justice Roberts (apparently) put strict limitations on access to Court information," Blackman noted.
"What did all of those measures accomplish? Apparently not much," he wrote. Notably, the first leak led to a threat to Justice Brett Kavanaugh's life by a man upset about the decision, the Washington Post reported at the time.
By definition, both of these leaks are inside jobs. Whoever is doing this is playing a dangerous and partisan game with the safety of those on the court while undermining trust within the highest court in the land.
