The “Special Treatment” Supreme Court Justices Got During The Leak Investigation Should Be Investigated, A Group Told Congress

Congress is being urged to scrutinize the manner in which the Supreme Court probed the leak of its own draft opinion overturning abortion rights, including whether the nine justices received “special treatment” from investigators.

The Supreme Court’s Office of the Marshal released a report last week indicating they had so far been unable to pinpoint who was behind the May 2022 leak to Politico of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.

But concerns were raised that the marshal’s team did not require the justices to sign affidavits — as they had done with all other Supreme Court staff — swearing they had not been involved in the leak.

“The Supreme Court’s report on the Dobbs leak raised more questions than it answered — namely, why were the justices not investigated with the same rigor and to the same lengths as every other employee of the Court?” Sarah Lipton-Lubet, president of the left-wing group Take Back the Court Action Fund, told BuzzFeed News in a statement.

On Thursday, Lipton-Lubet’s group sent a letter to Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin, a Democrat, and Rep. Jim Jordan, the new Republican chair of the House Judiciary Committee, urging their respective committees to hold oversight hearings investigating “whether the justices received special treatment.”

“Unfortunately, the Court has proven time and again that it is incapable of policing itself,” the letter states. “As such, it falls to Congress to step up to its role as a coequal branch and provide the oversight that is so sorely lacking.”