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'Utterly ridiculous': Legal experts slam Supreme Court report on 'brazenly hackish' Dobbs leak investigation https://t.co/do1myG2ntq

— Raw Story (@RawStory) January 20, 2023

Reporting for Above the Law, attorney Kathryn Rubino explains, “Let me cut directly to the chase — it’s basically a giant shrug emoji…. You’ll recall, shortly after the leaked draft decision, getting to the heart of the leak seemed to be the focus for many in the legal industry — even in the face of a curtailment of rights that has had disastrous ramifications across the nation. The report seems to suggest the scope of the investigation was limited to Court employees…. Whether the ‘employees’ who were subjected to the investigation includes the justices themselves remains unclear, and the speculation amongst legal industry commentators is that the nine were not included in the search for the leaker — and it certainly doesn’t include any of their spouses.”

I'll say it one more time: of course not.

Supreme Court Justices leave the bench in one of three ways:  death; retirement; impeachment.  And only two of those three options have ever been exercised in American history.

To investigate the Justices would require an investigation by an outside, or third-party, authority.  Everyone know the Court didn't do this, and that the investigation was conducted by an office appointed by the Chief Justice.  This is not news.  So I'm a little surprised anyone expected a different outcome than the one we got.

Suppose a true investigation outed Alito, or Thomas, or Ginni Thomas, as the leaker.  What then? Indeed, so what?  It matters to the 9 justices, but what does it matter to the rest of us? The leak already confirms the Court is now a slimy, greasy place.  The question is:  what do we, the people, do about it?  Find a scapegoat?  Or set about fixing the problem?

I told everybody, from the very beginning, that if the Dobbs leaker turned out to be a Republican, the Supreme Court would somehow never find who did it.

Welp, the report's out and, what do you know, they don't know who did it.

— Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) January 19, 2023

Yeah, horseshit. Mystal jumps to so many conclusions there I'm surprised he doesn't go into orbit. Again, if you knew, what would you do with that information? Hold the Court in lower contempt than you do now?

The Court has not protected anybody here.  They're royally screwed, and my money is on the entire Court knowing (or at least suspecting with more informed speculation than the rest of the public has) who did it, and not being really pleased about it.  This leak does damage the legitimacy of the court; but then, so did Dobbs.  Of course, I would happily take that damages origin back to at least Hobby Lobby, but let's not all mount our hobby horses now.  The fact is, the Court was damaged the minute that opinion leaked, and damaged more when it turned out that opinion WAS the opinion of the Court, not some fevered first draft that Alito and Thomas fantasized would be accepted.  So right now, the Court is in a round room, looking for the corner they're supposed to sit in.

The Court doesn't know whether to shit, or go blind.  At least the members of the Court with any sense about them. I exclude Alito and Thomas from that group by definition, and I'm not all that sure about Roberts.  His VRA opinions have been atrocious, but he thought he was getting away with them.  Rather like McConnell still trying to hold onto a manageable governing entity in the GOP, Roberts is trying to hold onto the image that the Court is deliberative and judicial.  With Thomas and Alito leading the charge to tear down that thin veil and expose the partisan sausage factory that is now the inner-workings of the Supreme Court of the land,  I think even Roberts is beginning to realize he's just riding on a railroad, and he's not guiding the engine one whit.

I have no idea where this ends, except that is doesn't end in chaos and the collapse of civilization as we know it (or the Republic; two conditions that are too often conflated), and it doesn't end with hoping it all gets better somehow.  But it clearly won't end with the leaker being dragged off the bench in the Supreme Court Building and tarred, feathered, and run out of D.C.

So get over it!