Judging Freedom - Supreme Court leak investigation heats up

Episode Date: May 31, 2022

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Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the Bay with WGU. With courses available online 24-7 and monthly start dates, WGU offers maximum flexibility so you can focus on your future. Learn more at wgu.edu. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, May 31st, 2022. It's about 1250 in the afternoon here on the East Coast.

Please remember to like and subscribe, like and subscribe on Judging Freedom. Our numbers are great. You guys are wonderful. You can always make them even better, of course. Everybody probably remembers, even though events have dominated, events other than Justice Alito's pilfered opinion have dominated the news, everybody remembers that about a month ago, Politico revealed a draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito of the Supreme Court, which had been pilfered from the court. It was a genuine draft that Justice Alito and his clerks had circulated to other members of the court. That circulation is on an internal intranet email, which is not available to the public and probably even can't be hacked. I'm

not exactly sure how it works, but there's a very limited number of people who have access to that. It's only about 50. It's the nine justices and the four clerks that each of them has, and one or two other people. Somebody got their hands on this. It was a bona fide opinion, a draft. If enacted, it has five votes, so it would be five to four. If somebody else joined, it would be six to three. And it would have invalidated Roe versus Wade and sent the issue back to the states. So each state could decide for itself what the laws on abortion will be. The Chief Justice, angry at this betrayal. if done by someone outside the court, if somebody did hack, well, that's a federal crime, even though the feds do more hacking than anybody else. They do prosecute you when you hack them.

If done on the inside by a lawyer, that person would most certainly lose their license to practice law. If done on the inside by a non-lawyer but government employee, that person will obviously be fired from their government job. Why is this newsworthy today? Because today we learned that the marshal of the U.S. Supreme Court, herself a lawyer and a retired Army colonel who commands about 250 people who protect the court, the employees there, and the justices, has asked the law clerks for each of the justices, each has four, the chief has five, for their cell phones so that the U.S. Marshal who's conducting the investigation of the leak can see if any of the law clerks spoke to anybody in the media. Now, who are the law clerks? They are recent law school graduates, usually very, very gifted, bright young lawyers.

They have already clerked for another federal judge, either a federal trial judge or a federal appellate judge. And from there, they make it to the Supreme Court. This is a golden ticket for your career once you've clerked for a U.S. Supreme Court justice. And it will open doors almost anywhere that you want to work. You want to become a federal judge? Here's where you go. In a couple of years, you'll have a federal judgeship. You want to make a lot of money at one of the big law firms? They'll gobble you up because you know everybody on the Supreme Court and you are bright enough to be chosen by Supreme Court justices. Today, however, those clerks are probably not very happy people, and some of them are considering hiring lawyers to which they are entitled.

You know, your boss asks for your cell phone. If the boss owns the cell phone, you probably don't have much choice. But if the boss is the government, there are things that the government can't do that private industry can do. The government cannot invade your cell phone without a subpoena or a warrant. That's what the lawyers whom these young people will hire will tell them. I don't know where this ends. Whoever it was, I wish the person would out themselves so that we'll know who it is. I've suggested it's either somebody who really likes this draft opinion and is worried that one of the five signatories on it might have second thoughts and he wants or she wants

to lock all five in. Or it's a clerk who really hates that opinion and was hoping the public opinion would dissuade the wavering justice from staying there. I don't know if any of the justices is wavering. This is just my own speculation. Who else would do something like this other than somebody with a political agenda? Whoever it was will no doubt be caught, and his or her colleagues will be inconvenienced in the meantime. They have rights, and their lawyers will help them protect those rights. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. your degree on your schedule. You may even be able to graduate sooner than you think by demonstrating mastery of the material you know. Make 2025 the year you focus on your future. Learn more at wgu.edu.