A media report says that Supreme Court law clerks have been asked to sign affidavits and have their phones searched as part of an investigation into who leaked this month’s draft opinion that said the justices were about to overturn Roe v. Wade.
CNN said on Tuesday that the request to look through phone records and sign an affidavit is new and shows that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. hasn’t been able to find out who leaked the document so far.
The news source says that about 75 people could have seen a draft copy of the opinion piece. CNN said that the law clerks are also thinking about how to hire counsel for the search.
When asked for comment, a representative from the high court didn’t answer right away.
Since Chief Justice Roberts asked the high court’s marshal, Gail Curley, to lead the investigation and find the leaker, 28 days have passed.
Marshal Curley has been in his job for less than a year. He is a former Army lawyer and colonel who is in charge of the court grounds and security. Legal experts have talked about whether or not the leak was wrong.
Some people have said that it could be theft of government property or trying to stop the court from doing its job by getting in the way. Some people have said that documents from the Supreme Court are not protected by privacy laws like documents from other parts of the government.
When people who follow the courts heard on May 2 that the Supreme Court was about to overturn a decades-old rule on abortion, they were shocked. It was the first time in the Supreme Court’s 233-year history that a full draft opinion got out.
In the draft opinion that Politico published, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said that the issue of abortion should be taken back to the state legislatures.
Chief Justice Roberts said that the draft opinion was real, but he also said that it wasn’t the final decision.
In the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the issue at hand is a Mississippi law that says abortions can’t be done after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Officials in Mississippi say that Roe should be overturned because it is no longer relevant. By the end of June, the court should have made a decision about the case.
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