High court says it’s yet to find who was leaker of opinion on abortion
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court said Thursday an eight-month investigation that included more than 120 interviews and revealed shortcomings in how sensitive documents are secured has failed to find who leaked a draft of the court’s opinion overturning abortion rights.
Ninety-seven employees, including the justices’ law clerks, swore under oath that they did not disclose a draft of Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade, the court said. It was unclear whether the justices were questioned about the leak.
Politico published its explosive leak detailing the Alito draft in early May. Chief Justice John Roberts ordered an investigation the next day into what he termed an “egregious breach of trust.”
On Thursday, the court said its investigative team “has to date been unable to identify a person responsible by a preponderance of the evidence.”
The investigation has not come to an end, the court said. A few inquiries and the analysis of some electronic data remain.
The court said it could not rule out that the opinion was inadvertently disclosed, “for example, by being left in a public space either inside or outside the building.”
While not identifying the leaker, the investigation turned up problems in the court’s internal practices, some of which were exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic and the shift to working from home.
Too many people have access to sensitive information, the court’s policies on information security are outdated and, in some cases, employees acknowledged revealing confidential information to their spouses. It was not clear from the report whether investigators talked to the justices’ spouses.
Some employees had to acknowledge in their written statements that they “admitted to telling their spouses about the draft opinion or vote count,” the report said.
Religious leaders who support abortion rights filed a lawsuit Thursday challenging Missouri’s abortion ban, saying lawmakers openly invoked their religious beliefs while drafting the measure and imposed those beliefs on others who don’t share them.
The lawsuit filed in St. Louis is the latest of many to challenge restrictive abortion laws enacted by conservative states after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.
Since then, religious abortion rights supporters have increasingly used religious freedom lawsuits in seeking to protect abortion access.
The Missouri lawsuit brought on behalf of 13 Christian and Jewish leaders seeks a permanent injunction barring the state from enforcing its abortion law and a declaration that provisions of its law violate the Missouri Constitution.
Within minutes of the high court’s decision, then-Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Gov. Mike Parson, both Republicans, filed paperwork to immediately enact a 2019 law prohibiting abortions “except in cases of medical emergency.”
That law contained a provision making it effective only if Roe v. Wade was overturned.
The law makes it a felony punishable by 5 to 15 years in
Missouri abortion ban:
prison to perform or induce an abortion.
Biden documents: A frustrated President Joe Biden said Thursday there is “no there there” when he was persistently questioned about the discovery of classified documents and official records at his home and former office.
“We found a handful of documents were filed in the wrong place,” Biden said to reporters who questioned him during a tour of the damage from storms in California. “We immediately turned them over to the Archives and the Justice Department.”
“I think you’re going to find there’s nothing there,” he said. “There’s no there there.”
Biden expressed frustration as he surveyed coastal storm damage, telling reporters that it “bugs me” that he was being asked about the handling of classified material even as “we have a serious problem here” in California.
“Why you don’t ask me
questions about that?” he pressed.
The U.S. is directing $930 million toward reducing wildfire dangers in 10 western states by clearing trees and underbrush from national forests, the Biden administration announced Thursday, as officials struggle to protect communities from destructive infernos being made worse by climate change.
Under a strategy now entering its second year, the U.S. Forest Service is trying to prevent out-of-control fires that start on public lands from raging through communities.
But U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack acknowledged that a shortage of workers that has been plaguing other sectors of the economy is hindering the agency’s efforts on wildfires.
The goal is to lower wildfire risks across almost 80,000 square miles of public and private lands over the next decade. The idea is to remove many trees and other flammable material
Western wildfire relief:
from “hotspots” that make up only a small portion of fire-prone areas but account for about 80% of risk to communities.
The work is projected to cost up to $50 billion.
Peru unrest: People poured into Peru’s coastal capital, many from remote regions, for a protest Thursday against President Dina Boluarte and in support of her predecessor, whose ouster last month launched deadly unrest and cast the nation into political chaos.
There was a tense calm in Lima ahead of the protest that supporters of former President Pedro Castillo hope opens a new chapter in the weekslong movement to demand Boluarte’s resignation, the dissolution of Congress, and immediate elections. Castillo, Peru’s first leader from a rural Andean background, was impeached after a failed attempt to dissolve Congress.
Anger at Boluarte was evident as street sellers hawked T-shirts saying,
“Out, Dina Boluarte,” and “Dina murderer, Peru repudiates you.” By early afternoon, protesters had turned key roads into large pedestrian areas in Lima.
The protests have so far been held mainly in Peru’s southern Andes, with 54 people dying amid unrest.
Missing students: U.S. authorities handed over a key suspect in the 2014 disappearance of 43 college students to Mexico, after the man was caught trying to cross the border Dec. 20 without proper documents.
Mexico’s National Immigration Institute identified the man only by his first name. A federal agent later confirmed Thursday that he is Alejandro Tenescalco.
Tenescalco was a police supervisor in the city of Iguala, where the students from a rural teachers college were abducted by municipal police.
Investigations suggest corrupt police turned the students over to a drug gang, which killed them and burned their bodies.