The U.S. Supreme Court said that its probe was unable to identify who leaked the draft opinion of the Dobbs decision last summer, but its conclusion has sparked some suspicions that the investigation failed to vet the justices on the bench.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court released an unsigned statement concluding that it was unable to determine the identity of the individual responsible for the leak or provide an explanation as to how the draft ended up in the hands of Politico.
In May, Politico reported that in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court was prepared to overturn the landmark ruling in Roe v. Wade—a report corroborated by a draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito that the outlet published.
The leak, and the subsequent decision to roll back abortion rights across the U.S., sent shockwaves across the country, prompting nationwide protests, triggering renewed threats aimed at the justices and upending the midterm elections.
But while the court was unable to find the person behind the leak that rocked Washington, Twitter users questioned whether some of the more conservative justices were investigated in the inquiry.
“They definitely did not interview the justice that leaked this,” journalist Sydney Bauer tweeted on Thursday.
A number of social media users speculated that it was Alito who leaked his own opinion, while others suggested that it was disclosed to Politico by Justice Clarence Thomas.
Trial lawyer Max Kennedy tweeted that Thursday’s conclusions brought up the likelihood that the leak came from “the Alito/Thomas camp” from 95 percent to over 99 percent, while Liberal Current Editor-in-Chief Adam Gurri said the report “almost guaranteed” that one of the conservative justices on the bench were responsible for the leak.
“Alito did it and we all…know it,” Democratic strategist Adam Parkhomenko wrote.
“It’s alito there solved it for you,” writer Erica Landau said.
Web developer Matt Ortega hinted that it was Thomas, saying that the individual behind the leak was “Probably the one whose wife is a paid activist for right-wing interests, talks with her husband about it, and played a role in an attempted coup,” referencing Thomas’ wife, conservative activist Ginni Thomas, who tried to help former President Donald Trump overturn the results of the 2020 election.
“Put alito and [Justice Clarence] thomas under a lie detector and see how fast they get to the bottom of this,” another user wrote.
The latest statement published by the Supreme Court also noted that the court consulted attorney Michael Chertoff, a former Secretary of Homeland Security, to assess its investigation. Upon his “thorough” review, Chertoff said that he could not identify any additional investigative measures that hadn’t already been taken by the probe, according to the statement.
On Thursday, some Twitter users raised eyebrows as to why Chertoff, who served as the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey before Alito, was consulted on the investigation.
“Sam Alito’s successor as US Attorney, Michael Chertoff, says that SCOTUS did everything they could to find the leaker,” one user wrote.
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