(FiveNation.com)- The Supreme Court acted very swiftly when word spread that the draft majority opinion in the case that eventually overturned the Roe v. Wade decision was leaked to the press.
In just 24 hours after the opinion was leaked and became public, an investigation was ordered into the “egregious breach” by Chief Justice John Roberts.
Next week marks three months since the leak happened on May 3, and there has been no public update of any sort regarding the investigation.
The Associated Press reported this week that the high court won’t even confirm whether it’s in the process of investigation the source of the leak still. It won’t confirm if they’ve found the source or if anyone has been punished for their actions.
The high court won’t confirm whether they’ve contracted the services of an independent law firm, or even the FBI. They won’t confirm whether they’ll ever give a full detailed accounting of the actions. And they won’t confirm if they’ve taken any steps that would hopefully prevent this from happening again in the future.
In fact, as the AP reported, the only response that they get to these — and many other similar questions — comes from Patricia McCabe, a spokeswoman for the Supreme Court, who says via email:
“The Court has no comment.”
Politico first published the leaked draft opinion on May 3. It was written by Justice Samuel Alito, and suggested that the high court was going to side with the state of Mississippi in an abortion-related case. It also suggested the court was prepared to overturn the landmark 1970s decision in Roe v. Wade that provided federal protections for women to get an abortion.
Following that publication, and the explosive reactions that followed, Roberts said the Supreme Court was going to conduct a full investigation to figure out how this could’ve happened. Gail Curley, the court marshal, was put in charge of the investigation.
There was a lot of outcry from many public officials both on and off the court. Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, said the leak was done as part of a pressure campaign seeking to “sway” the case’s outcome. He even said the “lawless action should be investigated and punished to the fullest extent possible.”
The high court’s longest-tenured member, Clarence Thomas, said that the Supreme Court was “irrevocably harmed” as a result of the leak, explaining:
“When you lose that trust, especially in the institution that I’m in, it changes the institution fundamentally. You begin to look over your shoulder. It’s like kind of an infidelity that you can explain it, but you can’t undo it.”
The justices ultimately weren’t swayed to change their mind in the case, as the final decision matched that of the draft majority opinion. Still, the leak was considered by members of the high court to be a huge violation.
Yet, there’s been no update about whether they’re actually doing anything about it — or whether they’ve made progress at all in finding out who did it.
