The Supreme Court leak will reverberate far beyond today. Former high court clerk Senator Ted Cruz has an inside perspective.
The Angry, Vindictive Left Is Here To Stay And Their Reaction To The SCOTUS Leak Proves It https://t.co/wHbZioQqyA [1]
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) May 11, 2022 [2]
Cruz: Very little in life leaves me speechless. But when news broke that someone leaked an entire draft of a majority opinion by Justice Samuel Alito in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, I was flabbergasted.
In over two centuries of our nation’s history, this has never happened. This leak is an unprecedented breach of the trust that every clerk, justice, and employee of the Supreme Court owes to the institution. It’s impossible to overstate the gravity of this ethical—and possibly legal—violation. The wound to the independence and integrity of the court may well be one from which the court never fully recovers.
To drive home how much of a breach this is, let me tell you about my time as a Supreme Court law clerk. In 1996, I had the privilege of clerking for Chief Justice William Rehnquist. The clerks spend almost every waking moment with their justices, helping them read briefs, study case law, prepare for oral arguments, and draft their opinions. For a young lawyer, there is no better opportunity to learn and understand the real inner-workings of the court. During my clerkship, Chief Justice Rehnquist became a teacher, a mentor, and a close friend. I was immensely fortunate to work for him.
The justices trust each other to negotiate privately and in good faith in order to reach well-reasoned opinions and then explain those decisions to the public in such a way that each member of the Court can agree with—or to give members time to dissent when they disagree. Similarly, the justices rely on their clerks and staff because they trust that his or her inner deliberations are sacrosanct. These procedures are integral to the Supreme Court’s deliberative process.
So the idea of an angry, left-wing law clerk breaching the trust of the Supreme Court—presumably in an attempt to intimidate the justices—is appalling.
Unfortunately, the decision of a lone unethical individual to leak the court’s confidential working documents is the consequence of a decades-long effort by Democrats to politicize and undermine the Supreme Court.
Democrats have systematically tried to turn the court into a mini-legislature, where five unelected justices get to decree the rules for the country—regardless of what voters want.
President Barack Obama famously denounced the Supreme Court justices during his 2010 State of Union address for the court’s decision in the Citizens United case. Democrats employed false character assassination attacks against Justice Thomas for years, and against Justice Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings. In 2020, Sen. Chuck Schumer even threatened two justices by name for the potential decisions they might make, saying they “released the whirlwind.”
…At the end of the day, the leaked document is still a draft, and the justices can change their votes up until the moment of the decision. I very much hope the justices will fulfill their constitutional responsibility and not be influenced by political pressure and partisan thuggery.
I remain hopeful the court overturns Roe v. Wade. Doing so would be the right constitutional outcome and would save the lives of millions of innocent babies.
This piece was written by David Kamioner on May 11, 2022. It originally appeared in LifeZette [3] and is used by permission.