US Supreme Court Can’t Find Out Who Leaked Abortion Decision

On May 2, 2022, the newspaper Politico announced that the Supreme Court was preparing to strike down the right to abortion and published the draft of its decision.

This unprecedented leak had the effect of a bombshell in Washington and provoked large demonstrations by defenders of the right to abortion.

It also rattled legal circles, as the High Court is known to zealously protect the secrecy of its deliberations. Its leader John Roberts denounced “treason” and immediately ordered an internal investigation to find the origin of the leak.

“After months of careful analysis of the evidence and questioning of nearly 100 employees,” the investigators concluded that “there was no need for further investigation regarding the majority of the 82 employees who had access to the preliminary draft,” it writes. The court in a press release.

“Some employees” were questioned again, “but the team is unable to date to identify the person responsible with sufficient evidence”, she adds.

The court specifies that it has asked federal judge and former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff for an opinion, but the latter did not identify any “additional” investigative elements that could advance the investigations.

The investigation report, published on Thursday, adds that it is “unlikely that anyone outside the court could have accessed its computer systems”.

The development of telework during the pandemic has “created an environment where it is too easy to take sensitive information outside the building and the court’s servers”, the authors emphasize, and recommend tightening the procedures.

On June 24, as reported by Politico, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which since 1973 guaranteed women’s right to terminate their pregnancies. Since then, about fifteen states have completely banned abortion on their soil.

Source: AFP