Every Supreme Court employee who had access to draft decision on abortion that was leaked online signed an affidavit prior to the official announcement, promising that they were not behind the disclosure.
That is, all employees except nine judges.
The revelation that the judges were not asked or required to sign the affidavits came Friday, a day after the U.S. Marshal's Office released a report saying investigators were I can't determine the culprit is behind the leak of Justice Samuel Alito's draft majority opinion Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health in Politico in May.
“During the course of the investigation, I spoke with each of the judges, several on multiple occasions,” Marshal Gail A. Curley said in a statement. statement released by the court on Friday. “The judges were very cooperative in this iterative process, asking questions and answering mine. I followed up on all credible leads, none of which involved the judges or their spouses.
“On that basis, I did not believe it was necessary to ask judges to sign affidavits,” Curley said.
In a report released Thursday, the marshal said 126 interviews were conducted with 97 court employees as part of the search for information. Marshall said the “investigation is focused on court employees – temporary (clerks) and permanent employees – who had or may have had access to the draft opinion.”
At the conclusion of the initial interviews, each employee was asked, under penalty of perjury, to sign an affidavit stating that they were not behind the leak. “If investigators subsequently determine that any personnel lied to investigators, those personnel will be subject to criminal prosecution for perjury,” the marshal wrote.
