I was always of the opinion it was leaked by Alito himself. I would content the op (part of the larger Quiet War) was to gauge public opinion, defuse it as an election issue, and was a sort of predictive programming. They got like two days of outrage, 90% of which was driven by non-stop media, so they proceeded with the ruling.
In actuality, the Supreme Court is like the kind of small office many of us had worked in. Nine justice have seven of so clerks each, plus a small administrative staff. Maybe a hundred people, only a small fraction of which would have had access to prepublished opinions.
Just a guess, but I'd say if such an opinion really leaked, it would be instantly narrowed down to no more than three people, if they didn't know who it was right away. Not much of an investigation would ever be needed.
I was always of the opinion it was leaked by Alito himself. I would content the op (part of the larger Quiet War) was to gauge public opinion, defuse it as an election issue, and was a sort of predictive programming. They got like two days of outrage, 90% of which was driven by non-stop media, so they proceeded with the ruling.
In actuality, the Supreme Court is like the kind of small office many of us had worked in. Nine justice have seven of so clerks each, plus a small administrative staff. Maybe a hundred people, only a small fraction of which would have had access to prepublished opinions.
Just a guess, but I'd say if such an opinion really leaked, it would be instantly narrowed down to no more than three people, if they didn't know who it was right away. Not much of an investigation would ever be needed.