The License to Leak: How Years of Attacks on the Court Created a By Any Means Mentality JONATHAN TURLEY
Even in a city that traffics in leaks from every agency and every corner of government, this was an unspeakably unethical act. The Supreme Court deals with transformative cases that drive to the very heart of our political, cultural and religious divisions, yet justices and clerks have maintained a tradition of strict civility and confidentiality on such drafts.
So what changed?
We changed.
We do not know what motivated this leaker other than to unleash a public and political firestorm. The assumption is that the individual wanted to pressure the court to reconsider its purported path, and to push Congress to pass pending legislation to codify Roe. Yet, this act is such an attack on the very foundation of the court that it is dangerous to assume a specific motivation other than disruption.
What is clear is that the court has become a tragic anachronism in our age of rage: an institution that relied on the integrity and ethics of its members and staff at a time when such values are treated as naive. It relied on justices and clerks alike remaining bound to the institution and to each other by a constitutional faith.
But we are living in an age of constitutional atheism, so it is only surprising that it took this long. For years, politicians, pundits and academics have called for reckless political action against the court.
Many Democrats in Congress have pledged to achieve political goals by any means necessary, including packing or gutting the court. Democratic leaders have hammered away at the court and its members, demanding that the court adhere to political demands or face institutional disaster. The threats have grown increasingly raw and reckless as politicians sought to outdo each other in their attacks. In the age of rage, restraint is a lethal liability.
The message has been repeated like a drumbeat: The ends justify the means.
Jonathan Turley.