Dobbs protesters in front of SCOTUS
By Robert B. Charles – April 18, 2023
How can a stunning leak by someone within the Supreme Court, a crime putting Justices’ lives at risk, roiling the nation, mocking rule of law – remain unsolved, forgotten? The leak of Dobbs – which overturned Roe v. Wade – must be solved, and likely can be, despite self-investigation failing.
The Dobbs opinion was deliberately leaked by someone within the four walls of the Supreme Court, almost killing a Supreme Court Justice. The source of the leak was within, or that seems the conclusion of an internal inquiry that interviewed 100 persons with connection to the draft.
Still, as if it were a mere clerical error, or semi-permissible breach, the inquiry came up empty and everyone shrugged – at the Highest Court in the Land, public discussion over. Why?
In the real world, people go to work, get sweaty, and also get held to high standards if someone violates the law – every effort made to catch them. Shrugs are not permitted. So, why here?
The reason crooks get caught when it counts is that investigators do not settle. They use computer diagnostics, sophisticated backtracking, every tool in their chest, polygraphs to fingerprints, time records to elevator cameras, even telephone and digital records kept by the National Security Agency, to at the truth – which deters future bad acts.
Where can that possibly be more important – for stakes and by definition – than at the Supreme Court. Needed is a serious relook at what is going on as to this unsolved Dobbs leak.
To date, we have had a simple, non-invasive, polite, genteel inquiry, thoughtful interviews conducted with preening deference to the dignity of the Court, no polygraphs, no pulling NSA data, no turning over cell phones or invasive searches of homes of clerks and left-leaning justices who might have profited from the early release, aiming to intimidate their conservative peers.
Why not? If this is what is clearly is – a massive breach of honor and law, not occurring at any prior time in 200 years, a flagrant, dangerous attack on the High Court, why handle it this way?
The question lingers, and will until the perpetrator is identified, caught, prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced, no matter who they are.
And why – pray tell – do you think this is not happening? Consider the backdrop – a Justice Department that continues to arrest peaceful protestors against abortion, refuses to arrest anyone for dozens of attacks on churches and pro-life services – because they “occur at night.”
Really? Mr. Attorney General, are we to imagine that crimes occurring “at night” get a pass? If one may be so bold, what percentage occur at night? Is there some provision in the federal code that gives their perpetrators a pass? If so, I missed that provision in law school.
No, anti-conservative, anti-church, anti-prolife bias in this Justice Department and White House, is transparent. Supreme Court Justices were put at risk by an AG who would not enforce the law – and we now know he advised against any “arrests,” if possible.
This is the same AG who is apparently considering surveillance of “Catholic churches,” since they adhere to “traditionalist” ideas, and thus may be “domestic terrorists,” like those terrible parents who speak up for their children at school board meetings, and oppose the leftist ways.
Is it any wonder that the Biden crowd has no interest in getting to the bottom of who leaked the Dobbs opinion, which re-anchored reasoning in constitutional principle but upset the left?
Is it any wonder that the AG – when asked why he had not worked harder to protect Supreme Court Justices after the Dobbs draft was illegally released – said he did not like the job, would prefer to give it to others, maybe put security back on the Court itself?
So back we come to the question: If we have the forensic tools – tough, hard-hitting, truth-finding tools – to assess, pursue, doggedly search and find the leaker of Dobbs, why not do it?
Forgive the audacity, inspired by so many excuses these days from this White House and Justice for not doing what they could, what others have, and what the American People expect of them.
Bottom line: My past coincidentally includes clerking on a US Court of Appeals, which required – as the High Court does – honor and honesty, no excuses. The leaker violated that in the extreme. The release was a bold crime – it deserves solving because it affects the future.
Thus, the inquiring, unforgetting citizen has a right to ask: Why have we not dedicated ourselves to the task of finding and prosecuting the Dobbs leaker? If not now, when? If not, why not?
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman2 for AMAC.
