From Zack Smith & John Malcolm (Heritage Foundation's Daily Signal); Malcolm had been a federal prosecutor for 10 years:
First, there are no laws that would explicitly cover the unauthorized release of a draft opinion; they're not classified or national security materials. Maybe Congress could pass a law allowing them to be designated as such, but nothing like that currently exists.
As [Orin] Kerr points out, obviously, if someone obtained the copy through a hack—a remote but not impossible proposition since Politico's national security correspondent placed his name on the story's byline—or stole a physical copy of the draft opinion, those are clearly crimes.
But what if someone who worked for the Supreme Court and had access to it (like a law clerk) released it without permission?
There are a few possibilities for prosecution but nothing that guarantees success.
