I’ll bet the clerks’ lunchroom is pretty tense these days.
All this suspicion around the clerks, but for all we know it could’ve been Jay and Silent Bob.
Sure, they can investigate. That’s a separate matter from being forced to hand over their phones. Maybe they can and maybe they can’t, but it doesn’t necessarily follow from the unquestionable right the Court has to “investigate.”
This may have already been posited, but I’m not going to wade through 800+ posts to find out.
Has anyone actually confirmed that this is the decision and not just a case where both sides, or even every judge, has drawn up a draft opinion supporting their decision and this was the one that got leaked?
I do know that it has been confirmed that this is a real draft, but does it reflect the actual decision?
I think the short answer is that we don’t know, and won’t know until the decision is released.
And that’s why they’re lawyering up.
Who’d a thunk it? Get the most prestige law job in the US, and your time at the Court ends up hiring a lawyer to defend your interests from the Court and your judge.
From the Politico article in the OP, it really is a draft for the majority:
A person familiar with the court’s deliberations said that four of the other Republican-appointed justices — Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — had voted with Alito in the conference held among the justices after hearing oral arguments in December, and that line-up remains unchanged as of this week.
It is possible the draft will be revised, but I would think it is most probable that Mississippi will win the case.
~Max
I think the question to ask is how often the justices change their opinion after the original draft. And then speculate from there.
This article makes a radical suggestion for how to save Wade: If the dissenting justices all recused themselves and denied the Court a quorum.
If they deny a quorum, the majority of justices might put the issuance of a decision on hold. But what if they … didn’t?
I dread the upcoming decision as much as anyone, but I think this is a terrible idea. The Court would start using this like the Senate uses a filibuster. They would need six votes to get any decision done on any issue. That might be fun given the current make up of the Court, but not good for the institution
But wouldn’t that simply leave the law in place?
It leaves the Court of Appeals decision in place. I don’t recall which way that went.
Yeah, this is so plainly a bad idea in my eyes that it reeks of desperation on the writer’s part. I mean, I suppose it might be a Hail Mary if you’re sure it’ll get your desired results, but is anyone sure?
Yeah… like Roberts the institutionalist would ever recuse himself to deny the Court a quorum. You can disagree with the man on his approach to preserving the Court’s respectability, but I think this is something he would never do.
~Max
SCOTUS as a non-political institution is already kaput. “Radical” options like this could help speed the way to real reform. But I seriously doubt Roberts would ever cooperate.
Apparently, details of the leak investigation are now leaking. . .
Whack-A-Mole beat you to the cite in post #817. 
~Max
Dang it! 
Maybe, but I don’t see how it’ll do a single thing for Roe, which is what the author is most concerned about.