Who leaked the draft abortion decision?

[bump]

I bet they do after this!

[HMS_Irruncible]

@flurb

But, plenty of people make stupid decisions. Hopefully John Roberts and the Hardy Boys will solve The Secret of the Legal Leaker and we can find out who it really is!

My guess is that after the initial furore dies down, you’ll never hear about it again. The trail will get uncomfortably close to a conservative justice or their spouse, and it will be silently buried.

Right-wingers, who are usually incensed about leaks, are no longer talking about it much because they realize it’s served their interests very well.

[puzzlegal]

@Leaper

True, but I’m having trouble at the moment thinking of a meaningful way to get around “black people and white people can’t marry each other,” especially as Thomas is relatively dark-skinned. Probably a failure of imagination.

I don’t think the supreme court will try to outlaw interracial marriage. I think it will just allow the states to do that. And the states are unlikely to de-recognize marriages they have already recognized, at most they won’t recognize new ones. IMO. So I really see no risk to the Thomas’ marriage.

[hajario]

Yes and similarly they aren’t now making abortion illegal.

[puzzlegal]

yup. Although there is a movement to federally outlaw abortion. I don’t think there will be a comparable movement to federally outlaw mixed marriages.

[hajario]

I completely agree but perhaps same sex marriages or even same sex intimacy between consenting adults.

[puzzlegal]

Yeah, that’s certainly at risk.

[puzzlegal]

@MandaJo

I think we shouldn’t expect the leaker to be perfectly rational. People make terrible, career-ending mistakes all the time. They have affairs with subordinates. They embezzle. They tweet inappropriate jokes.

There’s no reason to be confident that a peraon wouldn’t do something stupid

Yeah, that’s all true. It’s also true that people cheat on their spouses, which is why I think it’s plausible that a justice did it.

[PhillyGuy]

@puzzlegal

I’m leaning towards Ginni Thomas, too.

This post won’t disagree.

This past Saturday evening’s Washington Post article, with more leaks, affirms that the conservative side leaks:

How the future of Roe is testing Roberts

But as of last week, the majority of five justices to strike Roe remains intact, according to three conservatives close to the court who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

A person close to the most conservative members of the court said Roberts told his fellow jurists in a private conference in early December that he planned to uphold the state law and write an opinion that left Roe and Casey in place for now. But the other conservatives were more interested in an opinion that overturned the precedents, the person said.

Notice that the leak attributed to “three conservatives” concerns the situation last week. But the leak attributed to “A person close to the most conservative members” concerns information from months ago – just as the draft opinion leak was from months ago. So, as a semi-wild hypothesis, the December info is from the same person who teaked Alito’s February 10 draft. I know some here won’t want to be this generous to Clarence Thomas, but it could be that he shared a lot with his wife until a few months ago but now is being more careful. Leaks of old material could be from Ginni while leaks of new information could be from clerks. Or not.

P.S. If it was Ginni, wouldn’t the Post want to identify her as “close to one of the most conservative justices”? Yes! But sources often negotiate with the reporter how they will be described. Ginni might well have wanted to claim friendship with with other justices (do they visit for dinner?), and have objected to any identification that made it easier to guess it was her.

[PhillyGuy]

There are a bunch of new leaks today, including, but not limited to, leaks about the leak:

Justice Samuel Alito’s sweeping and blunt draft majority opinion from February overturning Roe remains the court’s only circulated draft in the pending Mississippi abortion case, POLITICO has learned, and none of the conservative justices who initially sided with Alito have to date switched their votes. No dissenting draft opinions have circulated from any justice, including the three liberals.

“This is the most serious assault on the court, perhaps from within, that the Supreme Court’s ever experienced,” said one person close to the court’s conservatives, who spoke anonymously because of the sensitive nature of the court deliberations.

[E-DUB]

It may well be that the leaker anticipated reaction to the contents of the draft and wanted it to start earlier and, therefore, be over earlier. Assuming that the ultimate opinion is pretty much what the draft says it would be announced when?

[Folly]

@E-DUB

Assuming that the ultimate opinion is pretty much what the draft says it would be announced when?

Probably at the end of the current supreme court session, late June, early july. Probably late June.

[CairoCarol]

Okay, I have a WAG. Clarence Thomas has just gone on record bemoaning the horrible breach of trust that the leaked draft represents, pretty much saying that whoever did it is a horrible human being.

To me, that means he knows who did it, and it’s someone on the liberal side of things.

[k9bfriender]

To me, it’s deflection, as he knows very well who did it, but wants to imply that it was a liberal, so that when he votes against an investigation into it, it won’t be so blatantly obvious it was his wife.

But, there are those who think that people like Thomas are honest folk who you can take at their word, and it’s likely they will be fooled into believing him.

[Tamerlane]

@CairoCarol

To me, that means he knows who did it, and it’s someone on the liberal side of things.

@k9bfriender

To me, it’s deflection, as he knows very well who did it, but wants to imply that it was a liberal, so that when he votes against an investigation into it, it won’t be so blatantly obvious it was his wife.

To me what all this means it that we still have absolutely no idea . One might be more likely, but either scenario is plausible. I mean Clarence Thomas might very well frequently lie like a rug, but that doesn’t mean that he is an invariably reliable reverse lie detector.

[CairoCarol]

To me (again), all of those possibilities are credible. I should have added, in my WAG, that Thomas thinks the culprit is soon to be revealed, too.

But, what I say is definitely wild, assed, and only a guess!

[Leaper]

I’m kind of surprised that so many people think the leaker is a justice or someone prominent. I always assumed that when and if we learned the leaker’s identity, it’d be someone the average American has never heard of. No real reason to think so; it just feels that way to me.

[E-DUB]

Yeah, like Miles Taylor (Anonymous) during the trump admin or the biggest leaker of all time, Mark Felt.

[Saint_Cad]

I heard a theory that seems to make sense at first glance. Assuming that the disapproval of Biden will lead to a Pub majority in both the House and the Senate in the 2022 midterms, the draft was released by a Democrat knowing the unpopularity of the pro-life position will lose Republican the moderate voters resulting in Democrats holding on to at least one of the houses, maybe both.

This also presumes there is a good chance the decision might be changed before becoming final.

[Lance_Turbo]

@Saint_Cad

This also presumes there is a good chance the decision might be changed before becoming final.

Any theory that presumes this does not make sense at first glance.