Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights, draft opinion shows

[grumbler]

No one should find that amusing.

Tell you what:  I won't tell you what you should find amusing, and you don't tell me what I should find amusing.  Deal?

[Admiral Yi]

Just learned from NPR that SCOTUS drafts (or anything else they produce) are not classified, and therefore not criminal to leak. 

Presents a bit of a quandary for the court IMO.

[ulmont]

Just learned from NPR that SCOTUS drafts (or anything else they produce) are not classified, and therefore not criminal to leak. 

Presents a bit of a quandary for the court IMO.

It's not a quandary.  It's like somebody leaking nonclassified information about any organization - they get fired and shunned and everybody moves on.

[The Minsky Moment]

The specter of criminal charges was raised by Mitch and the like as a rhetorical device.  Assuming this was leaked from the inside, and not an outside computer hack, it isn't a criminal matter.  Some Fox-y talking head said something about honest services fraud, which I found amusing as the Supreme Court significantly gutted that theory in the Jeffrey Skilling and Conrad Black cases, limiting it insider bribery.  Sam Alito was in the majority in both those cases so he would know.

[CountDeMoney]

The specter of criminal charges was raised by Mitch and the like as a rhetorical device.  Assuming this was leaked from the inside, and not an outside computer hack, it isn't a criminal matter.

You'd think these people--if they actually took the federal security awareness, records and retention training we are required to take every year as a mandatory requirement from laws they have themselves passed--would know that already.  But that's not the point, now is it.

Then again, we're required to take mandatory awareness training on the Hatch Act which, during the Trump Administration, was positively Camusian in its level of absurdity.

[The Minsky Moment]

Yeah the noble if quaint idea of having laws function as norms without clear and explicit enforcement mechanisms fails in the face of a governing clique that views crude shamelessness as the highest of political virtues.

[Admiral Yi]

It's not a quandary.  It's like somebody leaking nonclassified information about any organization - they get fired and shunned and everybody moves on.

I don't think this will be the last time a SCOTUS document gets leaked.

Assuming the leaker was a clerk, he or she will not be shunned.  They will be lionized and land in some university job.

[Barrister]

It's not a quandary.  It's like somebody leaking nonclassified information about any organization - they get fired and shunned and everybody moves on.

I don't think this will be the last time a SCOTUS document gets leaked.

Assuming the leaker was a clerk, he or she will not be shunned.  They will be lionized and land in some university job.

Depends who leaked it and why.

A lefty pro-choice advocate I almost certainly agree.

I've heard reasonably strong arguments why the leaker might have been a right-wing pro-life advocate, who leaked to try and force the concurring justices to stick with the decision as written.  If such a person is uncovered I'm not so certain what their outcome might be.

[CountDeMoney]

It's like Murder on the Orient Express...who did it?  So many suspects!

Was it...the Justice's wife with the obviously conflicted political agenda that everyone knew about for years but didn't care?
Was it...the Chief Justice, trying to heard cats that have grown beyond his control? MUH NORMS
Was it...the Date Rapist, in the frat bedroom, with the beer bong?
Was it...<insert radical leftist/minority/nonbinary/UCal-Berkeley grad here> clerk for Justice <insert female/minority/godless communist here>?
Was it...accidently left on a printer?

So exciting! 

[The Minsky Moment]

I've heard reasonably strong arguments why the leaker might have been a right-wing pro-life advocate, who leaked to try and force the concurring justices to stick with the decision as written.  If such a person is uncovered I'm not so certain what their outcome might be.

They will be lionized and land some job in the conservative media commentariat.  I.e. same thing, different flavor.

[Barrister]

I've heard reasonably strong arguments why the leaker might have been a right-wing pro-life advocate, who leaked to try and force the concurring justices to stick with the decision as written.  If such a person is uncovered I'm not so certain what their outcome might be.

They will be lionized and land some job in the conservative media commentariat.  I.e. same thing, different flavor.

Not that the MAGA-verse cares much about consistency, but the talking point has been about how outrageous the leak was.  There's also no concern about throwing former allies under the bus when convenient.

[Jacob]

The fact that the American right is going on about the evil leftist who must've done it sets up the expectation that it was done by a right-wing actor.

I don't have any particular insight or evidence, but it fits the general pattern.

[CountDeMoney]

The fact that the American right is going on about the evil leftist who must've done it sets up the expectation that it was done by a right-wing actor.

I don't have any particular insight or evidence, but it fits the general pattern.

Their accusations are always projections and confessions. It's what they do.

[Sheilbh]

They will be lionized and land some job in the conservative media commentariat.  I.e. same thing, different flavor.

And if they don't want a media career/have no charisma, there are plenty of Institutes and Centers in American universities that are well-funded by conservatives or the various think tanks that form part of the right's intellectual infrastructure.

They'll be writing memos on who to appoint to the courts in no time.

[The Minsky Moment]

Not that the MAGA-verse cares much about consistency, but the talking point has been about how outrageous the leak was. 

You correctly answered yourself.  In MAGA world, logical consistency is as much a weakness as integrity and commitment to the rule of law.  Look at McCarthy pulling the old who do believe me or your lying ears routine.