WASHINGTON — Maybe it was a liberal law clerk who leaked the draft opinion in the Supreme Court’s biggest case in years, hoping to gin up outrage among Democrats at the prospect of an end to legal abortions.Or it was an anti-abortion court employee fearful that the justices would end up backing away from their early agreement to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark case legalizing the procedure. Or perhaps it was one of the justices themselves, frustrated by the direction of their secret internal debates about one of the country’s most polarizing issues.Not since Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein refused for decades to disclose the identity of their shadowy, meet-me-in-the-parking-garage Watergate source has Washington been as eager to unmask a leaker.But while the city’s lobbyists, journalists and political operatives trade theories over encrypted messages and social media, Col. Gail A. Curley, the 11th marshal of the United States Supreme Court has been given the task of rooting out the truth in what Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. called “a singular and egregious breach” of the court’s operations.Hours after Politico posted what appeared to be a photocopy of a Feb. 10 draft opinion in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the chief justice confirmed the document’s authenticity and did the most Washington of things: He ordered Colonel Curley to conduct a thorough leak investigation.And with that, the bright D.C. spotlight turns to a former senior Army attorney whose legal work took her from the United States to Germany and Afghanistan.The second woman to hold the marshal position at the court, Colonel Curley serves as the chief security officer, facilities administrator and head of contracting for the third branch of the federal government. She manages about 260 employees, including the court’s police force, and is a voice that might be recognizable to anyone who has attended or listened to any of the court’s oral arguments.“Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!” she announces at the start of every public meeting of the court. “All persons having business before the honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States, are admonished to give their attention, for the court is now sitting. God save the United States and this honorable court.”ImageCol. Gail A. CurleyCredit...via U.S. ArmyPeople familiar with court operations said Colonel Curley is not normally charged with conducting investigations. But it will now be up to her to help save the reputation of the court, which has been badly tarnished by thedisclosure, as many Washingtonians lamented this week.The contours of her investigation are opaque, even by Washington standards. It is unclear how she might conduct an inquiry, whom she will interview, and what punishments the court could dole out if she tracks down the perpetrator.More than most of the federal government, the Supreme Court operates in almost total secrecy — a tradition that helps the court maintain a sense of being above the contentious political wars that so often consume the executive and legislative branches. On Wednesday, the court offered no insight into how the leak investigation will be conducted and did not respond to requests for comment.But there are some obvious places Colonel Curley might start to look for clues.The document Politico posted online appeared to be slightly askew, as if it had been placed hastily on a photocopy machine or scanner. The top left corner was dog-eared and looked as if a large staple were removed from the 98-page draft opinion. And the words “1st Draft” are highlighted in yellow — though it is not clear whether that was done with a highlighter pen or with a highlight feature on a word processor.Those physical characteristics could help Colonel Curley track down the source of the leak.ImageThere has also been much speculation about the authors of the Politico report and whom they might know inside the court.Credit...Ting Shen for The New York TimesOnly some of the employees at the court would have had access to the document, according to people who have worked there in the past. Each justice has chambers downstairs, which include offices for their clerks, a personal secretary and a conference secretary, and one chamber aide. Each justice also has more offices for clerks upstairs in the court building.Draft opinions are normally emailed to the offices of other justices and are sometimes printed and distributed among the justices, the clerks, and the conference secretaries. Each of them could potentially be a target for questioning.Dan Epps, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis who clerked for former Justice Anthony Kennedy in 2009 and 2010, said some of the justices might balk at the idea of their clerks By: Michael D. Shear and Zolan Kanno-Youngs
Title: As Leak Theories Circulate, Supreme Court Marshal Takes Up Investigation
Sourced From: www.nytimes.com/2022/05/04/us/politics/supreme-court-marshal-leak-investigation.html
Published Date: Wed, 04 May 2022 22:50:31 +0000
Read More
UK PoliticsWorld PoliticsVideosPrivacy PolicyTerms And Conditions
