Supreme Court observers are shocked at the leaks that are flowing from the high court’s chambers in the wake of its landmark healthcare decision.
In contrast to Congress, which leaks like a sieve, and the White House, which has dripped out tidbits of information, the court has a reputation as leak-proof, which is a key part of its above-the-fray image.
That image has been seriously tested over the past four days as unnamed sources have gone to the press with recriminations and finger-pointing over the healthcare case.
The substance of the leaks is not especially scandalous: Chief Justice John Roberts initially sided with the court’s conservative members, but changed his vote to join with the court’s liberals in a 5-4 decision upholding President Obama’s healthcare law.
But the fact that those details leaked at all has legal circles parsing every detail in an effort to guess who talked.
“The fact of the leak is shocking,” said George Washington University law professor Orin Kerr, a former clerk for Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Kerr is also a blogger at the Volokh Conspiracy, where he has become the unofficial emcee of Washington’s new favorite parlor game: Guess the leaker.
When the opinion came out last week, court observers suspected immediately that Roberts had changed his vote in the healthcare case, based on oddities in the dissenting opinion filed by Kennedy and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
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