Roe v Wade Leak Investigation Fails: What Happened?
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The Supreme Court's marshal was unable to establish who leaked a draft version of the court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade to Politico last year, the court announced on Thursday.

The Supreme Court said Thursday that an inquiry into the leak of a leading case overturning the federal right to abortion weeks before its official announcement failed to identify the perpetrator.

The investigation's inconclusive conclusion was another humiliation for the Supreme Court, which branded the leak "one of the biggest breaches of confidence in its history" and "a terrible assault on the judicial process."

Roe v. Wade Draft Leak

In the course of the investigation, investigators questioned close to a hundred court personnel, 82 of whom had access to electronic or paper copies of the draft majority decision by conservative Justice Samuel Alito.

According to an official report, neither Alito nor the court's other eight justices were targeted in the probe. Politico claimed on May 2 that it had received a leaked copy of an opinion indicating that the Supreme Court was prepared to overturn its five-decade-old rule in the case known as Roe v. Wade, which held that the right to abortion was guaranteed by the Constitution.

This draft was initially distributed to the court's judges and clerks on February 10. In response to the breach, Chief Justice John Roberts instructed Supreme Court marshal Gail Curley to investigate the revelation.

In June, in a majority ruling written by Alito, the Supreme Court ruled that there is no federal right to abortion, precisely as the leak had indicated, as per CNBC.

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Worst Breaches in History

In Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which challenged Mississippi's stringent abortion legislation, the Supreme Court issued its ruling. The 20-page investigation by Curley implies that the leaker was probably definitely a court employee.

The court stated in a statement that the leak of Justice Samuel Alito's draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization was "one of the worst breaches of trust in its history" and "a grave assault on the judicial process."

But despite the Marshal's best efforts, the person who provided the draft to two reporters from Washington, DC-based publication has not yet been identified.

Former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who was hired by Chief Justice John Roberts as a consultant to oversee the probe, stated in a statement that the marshal and her staff "conducted a comprehensive investigation within their legal authority."

Per The Independent, the 19-page report showed that the Marshal's investigation judged it was "unlikely" that an outside party breached the Supreme Court's IT infrastructure to create the leak. The report said that a technical examination did not lead to the identification of a suspect regarding the question of whether someone with authorized access to the systems was to blame.

During the inquiry, the marshal and her assistants examined 97 individuals who had access to the court's computer systems, with some individuals speaking with investigators multiple times for a total of 126 interviews.

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