Amid an ongoing investigation into the leak of a Supreme Court opinion that could see the landmark Roe v. Wade overturned, speculation is rampant about who was behind the unprecedented breach of trust.
Theories have been offered by both experts and casual observers of the high court about who released the draft majority opinion authored by Justice Samuel Alito, in a stunning breach of the Supreme Court’s tradition of secrecy, with many positing that a law clerk is the culprit. And over at NPR, legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg claimed the “leading theory” is that it was a clerk for one of the conservative justices on the bench.
Totenberg spouted off about the topic on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, starting off by saying the leak has been like an “earthquake” in the high court.
“There has never been a leak like this,” she said. “That has never, ever occurred before.”
Nina Totenberg on source of SCOTUS leak: “The leading theory is a conservative clerk who was afraid that one of the conservatives might be persuaded by Chief Justice Roberts to join a much more moderate opinion.” pic.twitter.com/TWzQmA1Uqm
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 8, 2022
“That could only, in all likelihood, have come from a justice — that I think is less likely — or perhaps one of the clerks,” Totenberg said, adding “and the leading theory is a conservative clerk who was afraid that one of the conservatives might be persuaded by Chief Justice Roberts in to joining the much more moderate opinion.”
She dismissively noted that there is “another theory that it was an outraged liberal clerk.”
“But I think the only one that makes sense is that it came from somebody who was afraid that this majority might not hold,” she declared.
Totenberg also found it “very unlikely” that an investigation will ever reveal who leaked the opinion to Politico which set off a firestorm after it was published last week.
Meanwhile, conservatives have offered up a very different take with U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz calling out the leaker as a “woke, little left-wing twit” and, on Sunday, speculated that it’s “almost certainly one of the 12 law clerks that are clerking for the three liberal justices”
Ted Cruz goes off on ‘woke little left wing twit’ SCOTUS leaker, says there’s ’12 likely suspects’ https://t.co/DnvwXX2MzY
— American Wire News (@americanwire_) May 5, 2022
“I’m confident we don’t have a master criminal working at the court. I think there are going to be electronic records,” the Texas Republican said on “Sunday Morning Futures.”
Chief Justice John Roberts called for the court’s marshal last week to launch an investigation of the “egregious breach” of trust.
“Court employees have an exemplary and important tradition of respecting the confidentiality of the judicial process and upholding the trust of the Court,” Roberts said in a statement. “This was a singular and egregious breach of that trust that is an affront to the Court and the community of public servants who work here.”
Meanwhile, Totenberg’s credibility was called out after sharing her “leading theory” on the SCOTUS leak.
NPR’s infamously wrong “Journalist” Nina Totenberg: It ‘makes sense’ Supreme Court leaker a ‘conservative clerk’.
Bless Nina’s heart, she couldn’t find water in a sunken ship.
— Mark Nantz (@BullseyeBanjo) May 8, 2022
Nina Totenberg, thought by many to be a biased propaganda organ for the Democrat Party will say whatever the narrative of the day needs to be to protect her Party. https://t.co/FsGXdjugEr
— Mark Edward Kortum (@mutrock) May 8, 2022
RBG pal Nina Totenberg, who ripped into Clarence Thomas with the Unproven Anita Hill leak, refused to cooperate with a special-counsel probe into her leak, so why should we care about her guess? https://t.co/7rpRntQMY2 https://t.co/rZyrXboetz
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) May 8, 2022
A conservative, riiiiiiiiight. They thought November was going to be too easy and wanted to make it more of a challenge? 🤔
— Admiral Quality: Music-Software/Flight/Space/Sci (@AdmiralQuality) May 8, 2022
Totenberg maintains her perfect NPR record as a Democrat shill.
— Richard Bridwell (@RichardBridwel6) May 9, 2022
Nina Totenberg doesn’t have a clean past when it comes to journalistic ethics (see Anita Hill story). It’s pretty clear that her most recent assertion is motivated by her own partisan bias. And it makes zero sense whatsoever that a conservative staffer could be behind this leak.
— Michael Hendrickson (@MaytownMichael) May 9, 2022
A crazy person may ask if Nina Totenberg is throwing attention to conservative clerks because the leaker of the draft is the same source she had for her “Gorsuch/Sotomayor dispute” claim.
Not me. But a crazy person.
— Sunny McSunnyface (@sunnyright) May 8, 2022
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