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The US Supreme Court fails to identify the author of the leak about its ruling against abortion

2023-01-19T22:46:58.847Z


An internal investigation has questioned 97 court officials, without finding any clues about the person responsible for an unprecedented leak


Defenders of the right to abortion participate in a demonstration a day after the Supreme Court annulled the sentence Roe against WadeMichael Conroy (AP)

The US Supreme Court has admitted this Thursday that it has not been able to identify the person who leaked last year, almost two months before it was made public, that this court was preparing to limit the right to abortion in an opinion.

In an unsigned statement, the Supreme Court ensures that it has followed all possible avenues of investigation and all the necessary forensic analyzes of the evidence have been carried out, but even so "the team has not been able to identify the person responsible so far."

In a report attached to the statement, Supreme Court security officer Gail Curley, who led the investigation, points out that during her investigation she questioned 97 court officials, all of whom denied being the authors of the leak.

Curtley also considers it unlikely that the document was obtained by hacking into the institution's computer systems.

“Investigators continue to review and process certain electronic data and some verification remains pending.

To the extent that these investigations yield new clues or evidence, the investigators will follow them to the end," says the official.

According to her, "if a court worker was the one who disclosed the draft, that person blatantly violated a system based fundamentally on trust, which has few safeguards to regulate and limit access to highly sensitive information."

The leak came to light on May 30.

The digital Politico, specialized in reporting on the ins and outs of power in Washington, published a draft of the majority opinion of five of the nine Supreme Court justices.

The draft, written in February, was signed by Samuel Alito, one of the institution's conservative magistrates.

His view was supported by conservatives Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, and Brett Kavanaugh.

The news was a bomb, the kind that is remembered years later.

The highest legal authority in the United States was going to rule in favor of annulling the Roe v. Wade ruling, which since 1973 had guaranteed the right to abortion throughout the country.

Instead, the most conservative Supreme Court justices in eight decades opted to let the 50 states decide whether or not to allow abortion, and under what conditions, within their jurisdiction.

The final ruling on the right to abortion was made public on June 24.

The content of the leak was confirmed.

With the support of six judges against three, the federal protection of the right to abortion ended, in a sentence known as Dobbs against the Jackson Women's Health Organization.

To the five who had supported the February draft, Roberts himself was now added, who qualified that although he agreed with the substance of the sentence, he would have opted for a somewhat less radical measure.

The three justices who declared themselves against - the liberals Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer - issued an opinion that strongly criticized the ruling.

After the leak in May, which was unprecedented due to its depth and level of detail, the judges were furious.

They had no qualms in calling it a "breach of confidentiality."

The president of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, announced with great fanfare the launch of the investigation that he would lead by Curtley.

If the leak, he proclaimed, was intended to “undermine our integrity, it will not succeed.

Our work will not be affected in any way.”

The leak put American women on a war footing.

Thousands of abortion rights advocates took to the streets to protest.

And when the ruling was officially confirmed, the protection of the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy became one of the main voting decision factors in the campaign for the mid-term elections on November 8.

In those elections, the Democratic Party, in favor of defending that right, obtained much better results than expected and managed to expand its control of the Senate.

The Republican opposition, which aspired to gain a clear majority in both houses of Congress, had to settle for gaining control only of the House of Representatives, by a meager majority.

Given the resulting electoral benefit for the Democrats, it could be considered that the person who leaked the document could have been a sympathizer of this ideology.

But he could also have been a conservative person who wanted to prevent judges from backing down.

The results of the investigation have been released just three days before the 50th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling.

During the investigation, the Supreme Court also consulted with Michael Chertoff, who was Secretary of Homeland Security during the term of President George W Bush (2001-2009).

Chertoff has recommended several steps to tighten information security in court, but offers no suggestions for continuing the internal probe, which he believes has looked at every possible angle.

“At this point, I cannot identify any investigative measure that could be useful,” says the expert.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-01-19

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