This could make sense if the decision wasn’t to be released until after the election. As it is going to be released in July at the latest, that doesn’t really work. As far as motivating voters goes, the closer to the election, the better.
OTOH, if you were a strong pro-lifer, and you knew this decision was coming, then if you give a heads up to states to start pushing anti-abortion legislation, you are saving babies.
It could well be someone that no one has ever heard of, but that’s no fun for speculation. In the group of pro-lifers we do know of, Ginny Thomas seems top of the list as far as accessibility to the material, most to gain, and least to lose.
Heh. On the other other hand, here’s an offbeat possibility: picture someone who doesn’t much care either way about abortion: not a guy who’d describe himself as strongly pro-life, or strongly pro-choice, but just an unimaginative opportunist who leaks this with, like, a shrug…
…and then, well, he simply waits to see if a consensus emerges: if one side full-throatedly hails him as a hero while the other side shouts that You’d Have To Be A Damned Idiot To Have Leaked This In Hopes Of Helping Our Cause, Which Suffered A Horrible Setback Due To This, why, then, he’ll step forward to declare that he did it for Side A; but if he instead finds out that people see it the other way around, then he’ll declare for Side B.
If he figures one side will shower him with money while singing his praises, and we figure he still doesn’t yet know which side that is, then would he bide his time until he could maximize his odds of parlaying all this into a lucrative Yeah-I-Meant-To-Do-That reveal?
If we are going with the janitor that found this in the wastebin or busser who picked up off the lunch table, then I could see this.
Anyone within the confines of those who should be legally in the know, however, I doubt any would have such ambivalence. They are throwing away either their careers or their reputations, and even those they would side with would not trust them in the future.
SCOTUS released a report saying they weren’t able to find the leaker and it seems like they’re giving up unless something new comes to light. Also I’m not sure based on the summary of the report if they investigated any of the justices themselves and how seriously if they did.
In fairness (or I guess in an attempt to not ascribe to malice what can be explained by stupidity), it seems like they had really lax infosec practices at least in the past so it wouldn’t be shocking if they simply didn’t have the capability to follow the breadcrumbs.
Crazier things have happened but it seems really unlikely that they did this. If there was no actual forensic evidence then the result of not finding the leaker is the likely oucome regardless, and if you wanted to put your thumb on the scale, you could just not try that hard, rather than an active cover-up. And if there was forensic evidence there’s no way to reliably keep that stuff under wraps nowadays.
I’m perfectly willing to assume the worst from those two, but non of the motives floated so far seem plausible to me.(of course that goes for the “other” side too. I don’t see how the leak benefited anyone)
ETA: except to lessen the emotional impact of the actual decision when it came out. But why would Justice and Mrs. Thomas care about that?
I think it was Alito, who wrote the opinion. Perhaps others wanted changes to his draft, so he leaked it so it there’d be pressure not to amend the language. He’s been previously accused of leaking the Hobby Lobby opinion.