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Couldn’t Find the SCOTUS Leaker
Big surprise here: the Supreme Court investigation couldn’t find the leaker of the Dobbs opinion. They made 82 employees (but no justices) sign affidavits under threat of perjury that they hadn’t disclosed the opinion. Since they didn’t put the screws on the justices, that means that the leaker has to be a justice. I imagine the leaker-justice got a stern warning from Roberts. Will it be enough to deter future leaks?
Who else thinks the leaker’s name rhymes with Monia Motomayor?
Published in Law
Still could have been an employee, who lied despite the affidavits.
Just because they sign affidavits doesn’t make it impossible for them to lie.
It means if they’re later found to have lied, they can be prosecuted, but how likely is that to happen?
I thought Dumbledore supplied the government with affidavits that prevent liars from signing.
It could have been an employee who lied, but that they didn’t investigate the justices seems to be a major gap in the investigation. I think they knew exactly who did it, but for reasons of workplace comity, Roberts decided not to out Motomayor publicly. He had a big investigation as a warning to everyone that this would not be tolerated in the future. If he didn’t make a big deal of it, leaking of opinions might become common.
Unless this means that the NEXT TIME Monia Motomayor leaks an opinion there will be hell to pay, which seems unlikely, what difference does it really make?
If the next leaks just means they round up 82 employees for affidavits again, that won’t stop anyone.
Yup. Nobody was going to get impeached out. I doubt this event will change future draft opinions. Remember, by the day of the public hearing, the justices have already made up their minds.
At this point, I think the left would be happy to see Monia impeached so they could get someone 20 years younger on the Court. They were grumbling a few weeks ago that she and/or Melena Magan should retire now while the Senate is in Mhucky Mhumer’s hands.
So whoever it was got away with it. Alrighty then.
If they were not troubled by leaking, why would they be troubled about lying about it?
But altogether seems unlikely that anyone will be identified nor prosecuted, hmmm?
What are Robert’s options for punishment? I guess he could behave in a very angry way. What about the newest Justice who, as a woman herself, has no idea what a woman is? Wasn’t she on the Court at the time?
Why not blackball every supreme court clerk from that year/session until someone cracks?
Don’t guess, just make it clear that any company or organization that hires any of them is on a SCOTUS hit list.
Heh, heh. Success.
I think this is Roberts’ best option and quite an effective one. I’m sure the other justices know that it was Monia who did it (if that is indeed the case). Either she has had to apologize to the other justices or endure their icy disdain for years to come. In a collegial environment such as the Court, this is probably the harshest punishment of all.
Note the very careful language they used: “unable to identify a person responsible by a preponderance of the evidence.”
I wonder what they would say if the standard were “who it almost certainly was we just can’t prove it.”
Correct. There is a lack of interest in “proving it.”
I think there was a lack of interest in proving it publicly because all the justices know who did it and wanted to keep it in-house.
The big question is whether or not the leaker has made amends. Alito said in October 2022 that the leak had made him and the other conservative justices targets for assassination. I don’t think he would have said that if the leaker had apologized. So either Monia apologized after October (and that is why the report came out now) or it is an unresolved problem.
Did you get your fee?
Wouldn’t they have been “targets for assassination” once the decision came out, regardless? It’s not like who-voted-which-way is ever kept secret.
I have had two thoughts since this happened: 1) Sotomayor is responsible, 2) Roberts is a coward.
Well, actually a third: Nothing will be done.
Might rhyme with Bonn Gobberts. That cheese-bag has trod upon the Constitution to avoid dampening the hem of the Court before. He is a coward and a liar.
I actually think the odd were 50/50 between Bonn and Monia being the leakers. Bonn has been worse than squishy, he had rewritten the constitution to justify Obamacare.
But would Bonn think that outside pressure would change votes? That seems like the kind of thing a liberal/leftist such as Monia might believe.
Outside pressure changed his vote on ObamaCare. He’s a believer.
I thought about making it “change votes of people like Clarence Thomas” but it didn’t seem necessary. I guess I should have.
Maybe Bonn Gobberts does think other people are just as malleable as himself. Another big mistake on his part.
Couldn’t, or chose not to?
Or found, but didn’t admit/reveal?
FWIW: Supreme Court Report Sparks Suspicions About Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito (msn.com)
So really, their not doing a full investigation is just going to add fuel to the fire. Roberts is a crappy head justice.
They couldn’t find the leaker where they were looking (the staff) because that wasn’t where the leaker (a justice) was to be found.
I don’t know. We had someone here at ricochet who is/was a law professor who spoke positively about “the work of John Roberts”. To this non-lawyer, Roberts does seem to be an institutionalist who is more concerned about the status of the SCOTUS than anything else. He might be more willing to squelch this if the leaker is a justice rather than a clerk (<– or whatever they call those assistants).
Not a bad justice, just a bad head of it. His decisions, ostensibly meant to not create division, ultimately end up making things worse.
The truth will set you free. But to fail to pursue the truth because the immediate aftermath will be messy is not helpful.