Investigating the SCOTUS leak
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@Jolly said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
@Horace said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
@Jolly said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
@George-K said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
Lawyer up, kids.
And pass the popcorn.
Supreme Court officials are escalating their search for the source of the leaked draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, taking steps to require law clerks to provide cell phone records and sign affidavits, three sources with knowledge of the efforts have told CNN.
Some clerks are apparently so alarmed over the moves, particularly the sudden requests for private cell data, that they have begun exploring whether to hire outside counsel.
The court’s moves are unprecedented and the most striking development to date in the investigation into who might have provided Politico with the draft opinion it published on May 2. The probe has intensified the already high tensions at the Supreme Court, where the conservative majority is poised to roll back a half-century of abortion rights and privacy protections.
Chief Justice John Roberts met with law clerks as a group after the breach, CNN has learned, but it is not known whether any systematic individual interviews have occurred.
Lawyers outside the court who have become aware of the new inquiries related to cell phone details warn of potential intrusiveness on clerks’ personal activities, irrespective of any disclosure to the news media, and say they may feel the need to obtain independent counsel.
“That’s what similarly situated individuals would do in virtually any other government investigation,” said one appellate lawyer with experience in investigations and knowledge of the new demands on law clerks. “It would be hypocritical for the Supreme Court to prevent its own employees from taking advantage of that fundamental legal protection.”
Sources familiar with efforts underway say the exact language of the affidavits or the intended scope of that cell phone search – content or time period covered – is not yet clear.
The Feds seem to have no trouble financially bankrupting whomever they wish. What's a few more law clerks on the pile?
I think Roberts is going to send a message that sticks. A crucified clerk.
Nobody loses in that case. The clerk becomes a pop culture darling, and prominent law offices would want to be seen offering her (ahem, him or her) a position. That's all fine with me. I'd still like to see the leaker unmasked.
Interesting take. Do you think any prominent firm would hire the leaker?
They will be a hero, if they say they did it because they were deeply unsettled by the Supreme Court siding with the misogynistic patriarchy. Invitations to The View, Good Morning America, and jobs at law firms, especially those specializing in women's issues, would abound.
@Horace said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
Invitations to The View, Good Morning America, and jobs at law firms, especially those specializing in women's issues, would abound.
For the next 99 years these interviews will take place in a federal prison.
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@Horace said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
Invitations to The View, Good Morning America, and jobs at law firms, especially those specializing in women's issues, would abound.
For the next 99 years these interviews will take place in a federal prison.
@Copper said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
@Horace said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
Invitations to The View, Good Morning America, and jobs at law firms, especially those specializing in women's issues, would abound.
For the next 99 years these interviews will take place in a federal prison.
If a law was demonstrably broken here then I would have assumed the FBI would be on the case rather than an internal SCOTUS investigation.
Education is extremely important.
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@Copper said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
@Horace said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
Invitations to The View, Good Morning America, and jobs at law firms, especially those specializing in women's issues, would abound.
For the next 99 years these interviews will take place in a federal prison.
If a law was demonstrably broken here then I would have assumed the FBI would be on the case rather than an internal SCOTUS investigation.
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@Copper said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
@Horace said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
Invitations to The View, Good Morning America, and jobs at law firms, especially those specializing in women's issues, would abound.
For the next 99 years these interviews will take place in a federal prison.
If a law was demonstrably broken here then I would have assumed the FBI would be on the case rather than an internal SCOTUS investigation.
@Horace said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
@Copper said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
@Horace said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
Invitations to The View, Good Morning America, and jobs at law firms, especially those specializing in women's issues, would abound.
For the next 99 years these interviews will take place in a federal prison.
If a law was demonstrably broken here then I would have assumed the FBI would be on the case rather than an internal SCOTUS investigation.
One would assume that if they did not know what side the FBI was on.
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Doesn't seem like there is a law stating a clerk cannot share a draft opinion with the media, as long as the clerk did not break the law in obtaining the draft.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/is-it-illegal-leak-us-supreme-court-opinion-2022-05-03/
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@jon-nyc said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
I’ve read approximately 75 people could have had access within the court itself. Add to that significant others, etc.
I don't see the point of adding 'significant others' to the circle of possible perpetrators. The SO would not be the perpetrator of the leak. The leak would have occurred when the SO was shown the document.
@Horace said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
@jon-nyc said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
I’ve read approximately 75 people could have had access within the court itself. Add to that significant others, etc.
I don't see the point of adding 'significant others' to the circle of possible perpetrators. The SO would not be the perpetrator of the leak. The leak would have occurred when the SO was shown the document.
Someone could leave their laptop. Taken a paper copy home to read. All kinds of ways an SO could do this without the clerk or justice’s knowledge.
Not saying it’s the most likely avenue but it’s a possibility
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@Horace said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
@jon-nyc said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
I’ve read approximately 75 people could have had access within the court itself. Add to that significant others, etc.
I don't see the point of adding 'significant others' to the circle of possible perpetrators. The SO would not be the perpetrator of the leak. The leak would have occurred when the SO was shown the document.
Someone could leave their laptop. Taken a paper copy home to read. All kinds of ways an SO could do this without the clerk or justice’s knowledge.
Not saying it’s the most likely avenue but it’s a possibility
@jon-nyc said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
@Horace said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
@jon-nyc said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
I’ve read approximately 75 people could have had access within the court itself. Add to that significant others, etc.
I don't see the point of adding 'significant others' to the circle of possible perpetrators. The SO would not be the perpetrator of the leak. The leak would have occurred when the SO was shown the document.
Someone could leave their laptop. Taken a paper copy home to read. All kinds of ways an SO could do this without the clerk or justice’s knowledge.
Not saying it’s the most likely avenue but it’s a possibility
Might as well just include Russian spies in the list of possible suspects at that point. Of course there is always a way to steal documents and leak them, for any Impossible Mission operative. We're all going on the much more interesting and plausible scenario of a clerk righteously sharing some salacious wrong side of history making.
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Include the Russians if you will.
Maybe you’d like it better if I said “a righteous right-side-of-history SO of a clerk?”
@jon-nyc said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
Include the Russians if you will.
Maybe you’d like it better if I said “a righteous right-side-of-history SO of a clerk?”
I’m curious about motivation for this clear subversion of our institution. I’m also curious at the hesitance of many to speculate about the obvious.
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@jon-nyc said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
We must consume different media because everybody spent the first week speculating.
I’ve seen a lot of calories burned whatabouting a theory that a right leaning clerk leaked it. These theories are inevitably from people uncomfortable with the more obvious tribal motivation.
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There’s a potential reason a right-leaning clerk (or justice!) would leak it, and there’s a potential reason a left-leaning clerk would. Both are pretty obvious.
I don’t think you’ve landed on some special insight.
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There’s a potential reason a right-leaning clerk (or justice!) would leak it, and there’s a potential reason a left-leaning clerk would. Both are pretty obvious.
I don’t think you’ve landed on some special insight.
@jon-nyc said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
There’s a potential reason a right-leaning clerk (or justice!) would leak it, and there’s a potential reason a left-leaning clerk would. Both are pretty obvious.
Care to share which you find more likely? I'm sure it's obvious and fascinating to list various non-zero possibilities, but not all of us consider that sort of discussion meaningful.
The fully tribal tack, as evidenced by this CNN piece from today, is to hand-wring about potential privacy abuses of the investigation, and about the wrong-side-of-history opinion, while not admitting to so much as a tsk tsk for the leak itself. They take this stance because they feel the leak was righteous, at which point the rules of the institution don't matter. So, I appreciate you haven't gone that route. Unless I'm misreading your posts, you're at least admitting that there's a tsk tsk involved.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/31/politics/supreme-court-roe-v-wade-leak-phone-records/index.html
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Well you should at least take comfort in the fact that they’re making the same assumption you are about the leak.
@jon-nyc said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
Well you should at least take comfort in the fact that they’re making the same assumption you are about the leak.
I’m willing to lay my opinion on the table. How about you?
Education is extremely important.
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There are more conservative judges, therefore there are more conservative clerks, so the law of equity states that it almost HAS to be a conservative clerk…
Also, the fact that it was a right-wing rag like Politico that the leaker leaked to kind of seals the deal…
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@jon-nyc said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
Well you should at least take comfort in the fact that they’re making the same assumption you are about the leak.
I’m willing to lay my opinion on the table. How about you?
@Horace said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
@jon-nyc said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
Well you should at least take comfort in the fact that they’re making the same assumption you are about the leak.
I’m willing to lay my opinion on the table. How about you?
I did weeks ago
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@Horace said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
@jon-nyc said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
Well you should at least take comfort in the fact that they’re making the same assumption you are about the leak.
I’m willing to lay my opinion on the table. How about you?
I did weeks ago
@jon-nyc said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
@Horace said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
@jon-nyc said in Investigating the SCOTUS leak:
Well you should at least take comfort in the fact that they’re making the same assumption you are about the leak.
I’m willing to lay my opinion on the table. How about you?
I did weeks ago
I recall you claiming that confirmations of the leak were leaks themselves, and that those confirmations came from clerks of right-leaning justices. I don't recall you making any concrete guess about who the original leaker was, or their motivation. You listed possibilities, but not probabilities. But maybe I missed something.
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It’s funny watching your mind seize on any morsel of evidence that maybe just maybe a conservative judges’ chambers were responsible for this. Say Jon if you actually had to make a bet about whether it was a pro abort or anti abort agent who leaked the draft, what would be your bet?
Education is extremely important.
