DOJ steps up its investigation into the Dobbs leak – SCOTUSblog

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Morning Reads

Morning Reads

Justice Dept. Steps Up Criminal Inquiry of Supreme Court Abortion Decision Leak

By Jodi Kantor and Michael S. Schmidt, The New York Times

In May 2022, Politico released a leaked draft of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned the right to abortion. The leak was “a seismic breach of confidentiality” and led to “an internal inquiry by the court,” although “no leaker has ever been publicly identified.” But The New York Times reported on Thursday that the Justice Department is now “pursuing a criminal investigation into who leaked” the draft opinion and that this “investigation has ramped up in recent weeks as prosecutors have sent grand jury subpoenas for testimony and sought information from people who worked at the court at the time of the leaks.”

Midterm Rout Closes Trump’s Window on the Supreme Court

By James Romoser, The Wall Street Journal

Tuesday’s midterm elections “all but guaranteed” President Donald Trump won’t be able to put a fourth justice on the Supreme Court. Beginning in January, Democrats will have “a Senate majority—with a several-seat cushion—that will make it easy to block Trump judicial nominees, especially for any Supreme Court vacancies that might arise in 2027 or 2028,” according to The Wall Street Journal. Faced with this reality, “[s]ome legal observers have floated a last-ditch scenario in which [Clarence] Thomas or [Samuel] Alito could announce their retirement in the coming days and give Trump and the outgoing Republican Senate a chance to quickly install a successor before the newly elected Congress is seated on Jan. 3.” But the Journal described this scenario as “exceedingly unlikely,” in large part because neither Alito nor Thomas appears interested in retiring. And it’s not “clear that a Supreme Court nominee could get through the lame-duck Congress even if there were a retirement, especially because some moderate Republican senators are on their way out of office and blame Trump for losing their seats.”

Senate Democrats will not let Trump put a ‘right-winger’ on the Supreme Court, Schumer vows

By Mary Clare Jalonick, Associated Press

In a Thursday interview with the Associated Press, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said “that Democrats will not allow President Donald Trump to put ‘a right-winger’ on the Supreme Court once they take power.” He “would not say if he would hold a Supreme Court vacancy open until after the next presidential election, as former Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell did in 2016. But he said that Democrats are ‘not going to allow any crappy nominees’ to be confirmed to the Supreme Court.” “The bottom line is we’re not going to allow a right-winger on the court,” Schumer said.

Democrats Can Now Fix the Supreme Court Without Reforming It

By Noah Feldman, Bloomberg

In a column for Bloomberg, Noah Feldman contended that Tuesday’s election results “should cause Democrats to reconsider the wisdom of plans to pack the court or strip it of jurisdiction over certain issues.” It should no longer feel as urgent to make such changes, according to Feldman, because “[i]f a Democrat wins the presidency in 2028 and the Democrats hold the Senate, the Democrats will have a chance to flip the court from 6-3 conservative to 5-4 liberal” simply by filling predicted or expected vacancies. The reform proposals floated in recent months “make little sense if Democrats take seriously the prospect of a liberal recapture of the institution,” Feldman wrote.

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