As part of the investigation, prosecutors, which typically have primary responsibility for the security of judges, conducted 126 interviews with 97 court employees and concluded that 82 of them had access to the call, in addition to nine judges. But the investigation focused primarily on employees such as clerks or other employees, not judges.
(Justice Stephen Breyer was still on the court at the time and had not yet been replaced by a justice Ketanji Brown Jackson).
In a follow-up statement last week, Marshal Gail A. Curley said she did not believe it was necessary to ask judges to sign affidavits because other court officials were required to do so.
“During the course of the investigation, I spoke with each of the judges, several times,” Curley said. “The judges actively cooperated 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.”
The Take Back the Court letter highlights the attention that Justice Alito received after New York Times report from November, which revealed that the former anti-abortion leader learned of the results of another Alito majority decision in 2014 before it was publicly released after his friends had lunch with the judge and his wife. Lipton-Lubet's letter to lawmakers asked whether Alito was questioned about the case in 2014 and whether his contacts with anti-abortion activists were examined.
“Supreme Court staff will be vulnerable to a wide range of sanctions, including termination and harm to future career prospects, if they are found to have misled the marshal's investigation. In contrast, judges receive lifetime appointments and are virtually impossible to remove from office,” Lipton-Lubet wrote.
“Why, then, did the marshal believe that the additional threat of legal exposure was necessary to ensure the honest cooperation of court officials while refusing to expose judges to the same legal exposure?” Lipton-Lubet added.
Representatives for Durbin and Jordan did not respond to requests for comment.
Jordan, who took control of his committee when Republicans gained a slim majority in the House in November's midterm elections, said he wants to hold hearings on other issues involving the FBI, immigrants crossing the border with Mexico and the president Joe Bidenkeeps secret documents in his private home.
But Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican and member of the committee, has signaled he wants further scrutiny of the leak.
“The Supreme Court leak case is not closed,” Issa said on Twitter last week. “Congress must conduct an appropriate and comprehensive investigation.”
