Why the Supreme Court’s Leak Investigation Failed
Immediately following the leak of its draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health last spring, the Supreme Court in a press release described the incident as an “egregious” breach of trust. Chief Justice John Roberts directed the marshal of the Supreme Court to investigate the leak. That investigation resulted in a report, issued earlier this year, that did not uncover the source of the leak.
This result did not surprise me. As the inspector general of the Department of Justice and acting inspector general of the Department of Defense for many years, I was often asked to conduct leak investigations. They are notoriously difficult to resolve.
[Glenn Fine: The most important public servants you’ve never heard of]
Not all leaks are as egregious as this one. Many do not warrant a full investigation or the upheaval such an investigation can cause to an the integrity of the Court and its decision-making process, which the Court .
