OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch has given a potential timeline for when the identity of the person or persons who leaked the ‘Roe’ preliminary draft opinion in May could be revealed. In June, the Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in all states. Gorsuch believes that the Court may soon announce at least some findings from its internal investigation.
“The chief justice appointed an internal committee to oversee the investigation,” Gorsuch said. “That committee has been busy, and we’re looking forward to their report, I hope, soon.”
At the time, the nation’s highest court admitted that a “copy of a draft opinion in a pending case” was made public, but added that it did “not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case.”
Nearly four months after the leak, the identity of the leaker is still unknown, however.
“Former law clerks at the high court from both sides of the aisle were uniformly stunned when Justice Samuel L. Alito Jr.’s draft dropped online, but they differ broadly on whether the court should identify the culprit and if the leaker needs to be punished to counter future disclosures of controversial cases,” The Washington Times reported.
“And despite the magnitude of the breach of high court etiquette and procedure, some think the mystery may never be cracked — or at least revealed to outsiders,” the report added.
“If they haven’t identified the person by now, they aren’t going to make it public. I don’t think the public will find out,” said Carolyn Shapiro, a former clerk for retired Justice Stephen G. Breyer.
One Republican lawmaker recently speculated that the Supreme Court’s liberal-leaning justices are likely aware of who the leaker is.
Rep. Matt Rosendale of Montana said he believed that at least some of the justices know the leaker’s identity.
“We all could probably agree that the justices that were appointed by Democrat presidents know who the leaker was,” he said. “What bothers me, it’s not only the undermining that it did of the institution and the trust factor that these folks have with each other,” it’s that now that the trust is broken, “it’s very difficult to restore it.”
Rosendale said he believes the person or persons who released the information will be revealed.
“There could be more people involved, and those people could go all the way to the top,” he said. “Don’t eliminate the judges because you know people, so there’s no way that would happen. No way. Think about it. Michael Sussmann is on trial right now for Russiagate. That happened six years ago. We’re only getting answers right now. I hope it doesn’t take another six years to get answers to what happened at the Supreme Court.”
A report from Five Thirty Eight notes how overturning Roe has led to at least 10,000 fewer legal abortions.
“Since June, thousands of Americans have crossed state lines seeking an abortion, like a pressure wave spreading out from a blast zone. A data set shared exclusively with FiveThirtyEight shows that in the two months after the Supreme Court decision, there were 10,670 fewer abortions as compared to pre-Dobbs estimates. That figure is a net, counting both declines in some states and increases in others, and it shows how a few states are absorbing some — but not all — of the demand for abortions in states where it’s now banned,” the outlet noted.
“That topline number conceals an enormous amount of fluctuation between states. In all states that saw declines in their abortion numbers — which include the 15 states in which abortion was banned or severely limited over the summer — the number of abortions fell by about 22,000.1 Some of those women appear to have traveled out of state because in other states, the number of abortions rose by an aggregate of about 12,000,” the report continued.
