In the weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court announced its ruling in the “Obamacare” case, as much attention was paid to the leaks surrounding the decision as to the decision itself. In a report that stunned official Washington, CBS reporter Jan Crawford revealed confidential information about the internal deliberations of the justices regarding the pending case information that detailed not only Chief Justice John Roberts Jr.’s last-minute decision to join his liberal colleagues in upholding the constitutionality of the legislation, but also the lobbying efforts by the conservative justices to win back the chief justice’s vote. In short, the leaked information represented one of the more significant breaches of confidentiality in the history of the modern Supreme Court.
Once journalists and legal bloggers finished digesting the leaked information, they turned their attention to debating who might have been the source of the leak. A list of possible suspects quickly emerged, including justices Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas; Thomas’ wife, Ginni Thomas; and the Supreme Court law clerks. Regarding the clerks, some theorized that they may not have acted unilaterally in leaking court secrets, but rather divulged the information at the behest of their justices. Although it is unlikely that the identity of the leakers will ever be known, the possibility that clerks were instructed to talk to the press raises a host of timely questions involving the ethical code of conduct binding the clerks.
