Supreme Court Marshal Clarifies: Justices Were Interviewed in Leak Probe

The Marshal of the U.S. Supreme Court clarified on Friday that all nine justices had, in fact, been interviewed in the investigation into the leak of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization draft decision last May.

On Thursday, as Breitbart News noted, the Court reported that it had been unable to determine who leaked the document, though it had found several breaches of protocol. On Friday, Breitbart News reported that the probe did not appear to have interviewed any of the justices, who were omitted from the report into the investigation.

Later on Friday, Marshal Gail A. Curley clarified that the justices had been interviewed — but that none were asked or required to sign a sworn statement, under penalty of perjury, as other Court employees had been.

The New York Times reported:

In a 20-page report on Thursday, Ms. Curley disclosed that the investigation had not turned up the source of the leak while leaving ambiguous whether it had extended to grilling the justices themselves.

…

“During the course of the investigation, I spoke with each of the justices, several on multiple occasions,” Ms. Curley said [Friday]. “The justices actively cooperated in this iterative process, asking questions and answering mine.”
However, she said, she did not ask the justices to sign sworn statements attesting that they had not leaked the draft opinion or information about it after the interviews, unlike dozens of clerks and permanent employees of the court. She also did not say whether she had interviewed any of the justices’ spouses.

The leak provoked nationwide outrage and protests by pro-choice and pro-abortion activists against the Court — often targeting the homes of conservative justices. There was an assassination attempt against Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and pro-life pregnancy centers were vandalized and attacked in a left-wing “summer of rage.”

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.