Supreme Court failed to find source of leaked opinion overturning Roe v. Wade

Washington D.C., Jan 19, 2023 / 14:00 pm

The Supreme Court announced today that it has failed to find the person responsible for the leaked draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade. 

A joint statement released by the Supreme Court and marshal of the court today said the investigation has not been able to positively identify the culprit, despite concluding that it is “unlikely” the court was hacked and narrowing the search to “82 employees [who] had access to electronic or hard copies of the draft opinion.” 

“It is not possible to determine the identity of any individual who may have disclosed the document or how the draft opinion ended up with Politico,” the Supreme Court statement said.

An unprecedented Supreme Court leak to Politico in May 2022 exposed an unpublished draft opinion in which five justices voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to abortion. The majority opinion in the case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, returned the decision regarding abortion regulations back to the states.

Immediate backlash ensued after news of the leak broke in which Supreme Court Justices’ lives were threatened and protests were held for days outside their homes.

“In May 2022, this Court suffered one of the worst breaches of trust in its history: the leak of a draft opinion,” the Supreme Court statement said. “The leak was no mere misguided attempt at protest. It was a grave assault on the judicial process.”

Chief Justice John Roberts quickly directed the marshal of the Supreme Court to conduct a thorough investigation into the leak.

According to today’s statement, the marshal “conducted 126 formal interviews of 97 employees, all of whom denied disclosing the opinion. Despite these efforts, investigators have been unable to determine at this time, using a preponderance of the evidence standard, the identity of the person(s) who disclosed the draft majority opinion.”