January 20 – After eight months of looking into it, the United States Supreme Court cannot find the person or persons who leaked the draft decision to overturn Roe vs Wade from last May.
The investigation interviewed almost 100 court employees and even had the help of forensic experts and still – nothing.
The report is considered concluded.
Attorney Clint Barkdoll said, “Here’s a really interesting sidelight to this, I think. If you go back to when all that happened, Josh Gerstein, the Politico reporter that broke that story, Politico also assigned him to cover the investigation of the leak, which is very odd because obviously he knows who the leaker is because he’s the reporter that got the information originally.”
Could looking into his reporting on the investigation unveil clues?
Barkdoll said, “He points out very carefully that according to this investigative report, they apparently did not interview the justices. Was this is subtle way of letting the public know that the source might have actually been one of the justices? Because they apparently were exempt from the investigation. So I don’t know if that’s just him pointing that out from a reporters standpoint or was that a signal maybe that this is where the information came from?”
The answer will likely never be known. Reporters have protections. They do not have to reveal their sources and Gerstein won’t.
Clarence Thomas participated in an interview a few weeks ago where he talked about how he believes this leak has damaged the Supreme Court’s reputation.
Barkdoll said, “They operated for hundreds of years. There’s this unwritten rule about just secrecy in everything they do for the good of the public and to preserve the system. Once this happened, it really caused some damage to the integrity of the court.”
Michele Jansen of NewsTalk 103.7FM said, “The idea that they said there was no lie detectors used. They said it was very sloppy the way they conducted this. Then you think about the idea of what if this was one of the judges? That would be incredibly bad for that to come out.”
Pat Ryan of NewsTalk 103.7FM added, “What about Trump is going arrest the reporter, throw him in jail. Obviously as you had said, reporters are protected.”
Barkdoll said, “Trump did say that yesterday and he’s wrong. No, the reporter should not be arrested here. This is part of our system and this is part of how this works. Reporters rely on these sources and as concerning as this is, Gerstein has immunity and protection to not ever reveal that source.”
Remember, when this broke, Gerstein had an actual copy of the opinion and that’s what was published.
Barkdoll said, “Clearly it had to have been someone within that ecosystem that would have been privy to the draft opinion that was circulating around. It’s a very small pool of people that work in that system, other than the nine justices. It would essentially have been these handful of clerks and staff people that would see these drafts as they’re going around. Maybe this will turn out someday to be like the Richard Nixon Watergate tape Deep Throat case where 40 or 50 years after the fact it will be revealed who the leaker was, but I don’t think we’re going to learn anything on this for a very long time, if ever.”
