Supreme Court fails to find leaker of Dobbs decision that overturned Roe

The Supreme Court said Thursday a probe has failed to identify the person who last year leaked a draft of the justices’ ruling overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.

Despite interviewing nearly 100 court employees, the court said its probe of the unprecedented leak came up empty.

“To date, the team has been unable to identify a person responsible by a preponderance of the evidence,” the court said in an unsigned statement.

Investigators said they interviewed clerks and other employees, but not the nine justices themselves.

Some court workers copped to breaking confidentiality rules by revealing the decision’s contents to spouses, but they were not suspected of making the bombshell leak.

The official who supervises security at the top court said the probe revealed the need for better practices to prevent future leaks.

“Whether or not any individual is ever identified as the source of the disclosure, the Court should take action to create and implement better policies to govern the handling of Court-sensitive information,” said Gail Curley, the marshal of the court.

Last May, Politico published a bombshell account of Justice Samuel Alito’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. By overturning Roe, it ended the constitutional right to an abortion.

The article marked the first time an entire opinion hit the public before the court announced it.

Chief Justice John Roberts ordered an investigation the next day into what he termed an “egregious breach of trust.”

The leak spurred a flurry of partisan finger-pointing that foreshadowed a political firestorm over the opinion itself.

Conservatives surmised that a liberal leaked the decision in the hope that one of the five judges who signed it would get cold feet. Progressives pointed out that conservatives might have wanted to lock the judges into their support of the controversial ruling.

The investigation concluded that it was highly unlikely that “a person outside the court” breached the court’s computers or other systems.

The leaked opinion turned out to be almost identical to the final ruling that was released in June.

Back in 1973, the results of the original Roe decision were leaked to Time magazine for a story that hit newsstands hours before the decision was officially released.

It prompted a wave of moves to ban abortion altogether in some Republican-run states and to enforce near-total bans in others.

The Dobbs opinion is one of the most controversial actions the court has taken in recent memory.

Anger over the rollback of abortion rights among women and progressives led to major Democratic wins in congressional special elections, while an anti-abortion measure was handily defeated in deep-red Kansas.

Even thought they fought for decades to overturn Roe, conservative Republicans downplayed the impact of the ruling and sought to avoid discussing it during last year’s midterms.

Political analysts say the ruling helped limit GOP gains in what the party had hoped would be an election referendum on President Biden.