The leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion on abortion rights started Washington’s greatest whodunit in decades, as the high court and official Washington scrambled Tuesday to handle an extraordinary disclosure that also centers on one of the most divisive topics in American politics.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. issued a rare statement Tuesday, to call the leak to Politico a “singular and egregious breach” of the trust of the court and announce that the Marshal of the Court would investigate.
Amid rampant speculation on social media and finger-pointing in Congress, the mystery raised questions about how the disclosure would affect the case and, in the longer term, a court that has operated with an expectation that its deliberations are kept within the walls of the insular, independent branch of the federal government.
