What law was broken by the "leaker"?

[HAB911]

not that anyone I have seen said they did............

the court has no ethics rules

[RANDYWILDMAN]

1. The court has no ethics

either

Still waiting for them to censure themselves over Bush V Gore

[SoonerPride]

2. "tradition."

But hey, if you are willing to throw out a 50 year court precedent, what's tradition mean anymore, Roberts?

They can cry me a river.

[JustAnotherGen]

3. Winner winner chicken dinner!

You are correct - they have no ethics rules in place.

I also don't believe that there is any law to punish a SCOTUS Judge or their Clerks for sharing their work with the people (Americans) they work for!

Looks like Roberts is pissing in the wind on this one.

[TheRealNorth]

4. That is a good question...

I suppose if the document was obtained by hacking or illegally gaining access to a private folder or drive.

But if the person who leaked it didn't break any laws because they had access to the document....

[TheBlackAdder]

5. Well, we know it's not being married to and taking direction from a Tea Party QAnon lunatic.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

12. How do we know that exactly?

Leaker could easily IMHO be a crazy conservative wanting to tout the 'great news' as opposed to a liberal who wanted to create an uproar over it.

[TheBlackAdder]

18. I responded to what law was being broken, not by whom.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

20. Gotcha :) nt

[TheBlackAdder]

23. Check out this that's hot off the presses.

.

According to the professor, she initially assumed the leak to Politico was the work of a liberal but upon reflection she has changed her mind.

Writing, "Now I think MUCH more likely it was leaked by a conservative fanatically committed to every word of Alito’s monstrous opinion," she then added, "Timing: This draft was circulated in Feb. If a liberal was mad about it, why wait until April to send it to Politico? The op will be out in June. What are the benefits of releasing it early? And a BIG downside – the focus on the leak itself instead of the opinion. If you work inside the Court, you know that the most concrete impact of the leak is to lock in this opinion essentially as is. Any edits at this point reveal jockeying between Justices, undermine the majority, and Court itself. Embarrassing to the majority."

Noting that liberals on the court have spent years lobbying to get conservative justices to make their final rulings less extreme, she claimed it would be detrimental to their case to expose an early draft.

"Far and away most likely impact of the leaked draft is that it locks in 5 votes for this opinion, essentially without edits. Who would want that? So: This is about as extreme an opinion as you can have overturning Roe," she suggested.


https://www.rawstory.com/supreme-court-abortion-2657257324/

.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

24. Good insights, thanks for sharing ...

I've thought since the minute the news hit it was at least as likely to have been leaked by a CON, as by a Liberal.

[ck4829]

6. None. They can be canned I'm sure, but that's it.

And then they'd have a job lined up at the ACLU, SPLC, or the National Lawyer's Guild for sure.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

13. Or Fox, Liberty University, etc ... we don't know who did it (nt)

[ck4829]

14. True

[MichMan]

28. Why would they want to hire someone with a history of leaking internal documents?

I dont imagine they would look kindly on it happening to them

[ck4829]

30. Gotta work to eat

[Fullduplexxx]

7. Distraction... when asked about the message in the leak they can deflect to a leaker

[gratuitous]

8. None that I know of

But isn't it curious how "outraged" conservatives are about this when they swallowed down camel after camel during the former guy's administration because it wasn't against the law to violate the Emoluments Clause, or to practice nepotism, or to charge the Secret Service top dollar to stay at the former guy's resorts whenever it pleased him to take a few days off and go golfing, which he wasn't going to have time to do.

I suggest conservatives sit back, relax, and enjoy a nice steaming cup of shut the fuck up.

[louis-t]

9. It's the "don't do what I do, just do what I say"

law.

[former9thward]

10. The clerks and other staff sign contracts forbidding release of information.

I suspect if one of Biden's staff leaked Oval Office conversations then many would be upset.

[ck4829]

15. Everyone should be upset... Matthew Hale and his spectral evidence... Wow!

[Tickle]

11. good question

I heard the FBI is on it so I'm assuming some law was broken.

[cbabe]

16. FBI is a political tool. They follow orders not the law.

[MichMan]

29. Who is ordering them to investigate it?

AG Garland?

[cbabe]

31. Justice Roberts. But does he have legal right to initiate an investigation?

[onecaliberal]

17. The only laws that were broken were by Thomas.

[Cicada]

19. I had advance knowledge of an opinion once

This isn’t the first leak by any means. I got an inadvertent leak once. A former girlfriend of mine had clerked for the supremes and later represented a trade group in a case before the court. She called the court to ask when the opinion would be released and spoke to someone in the clerk’s office she knew. That person told her it would be released the next day. On the speaker phone I could tell from the tone of voice that my girlfriend had lost. There was sorrow in the voice of the person. My girlfriend did not detect it but I absolutely did. It was 5 to 4 against my girlfriend’s side. Reporters had ways to find things out. Nina Totenberg would follow clerks to spy on them for instance.

[Chainfire]

21. The Court is just pissed because someone stole the thunder of them being to announce their

finding under the lights and cameras. Fuck 'em.

[lame54]

32. Timing...

June is when the J 6th hearings start

[Chainfire]

35. Live hearings may be banned before June.

Besides that, I wouldn't be surprised that if they were delayed because someone just accused Trump of Jay Walking in NYC two years ago, and, of course, the committee will have to investigate that too...

[PoliticAverse]

22. Ashton Fox Embry who leaked a Supreme Court decision was indicted...

Last edited Tue May 3, 2022, 05:20 PM - Edit history (1)

to deprive the United States of its lawful right and duty of promulgating information in the way and at the time required by law and at departmental regulation.

See:
https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/clerk-thief-his-life-baker-visiting-judge-tells-story-1919-supreme-court-leak
https://calapplaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/2019.02.25-Appellate-Zealots-BF-on-Selling-secrets-The-disturbing-tale-of-Supreme-Court-clerk-Ashton-Embry.pdf

Realistically, the only punishment the current leaker likely faces is being fired.

[obamanut2012]

25. None

[MichMan]

26. Being disbarred I suppose at a minimum

[Delmette2.0]

27. It seems that spouses also have no ethics rules.

I hope it was a liberal spouse.

[ultralite001]

33. One spouse in particular comes to mind...

Isn't considered a liberal...

Definitely has questionable ethics...

That is all...

[spanone]

34. In republicon world, telling the truth is tantamount to law breaking.