Supreme Court Report On Dobbs Leak
Supreme Court Report On Dobbs Leak
Supreme Court Report On Dobbs Leak
in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org., No. 19-1392. On May 3, 2022, the
Chief Justice publicly announced that he had directed the Marshal to launch
May 5, 2022, the Marshal initiated an investigation to determine who made the
investigation, and reported the results. Section II of this report captures the
outside the Court. After examining the Court’s computer devices, networks,
printers, and available call and text logs, investigators have found no forensic
evidence indicating who disclosed the draft opinion. They have conducted 126
formal interviews of 97 employees, all of whom denied disclosing the opinion.
Despite these efforts, investigators have been unable to determine at this time,
who disclosed the draft majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health
Org. or how the draft opinion was provided to Politico. Investigators continue
to review and process some electronic data that has been collected and a few
violated a system that was built fundamentally on trust with limited safeguards
and resulting expansion of the ability to work from home, as well as gaps in the
remove sensitive information from the building and the Court’s IT networks,
and practices that should be improved, some of which are set forth in Section II
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the Court Officers, will need to assess whether to adopt some or all of the more
detailed recommendations.
The draft majority opinion was circulated on February 10, 2022. Politico
published the draft opinion on the evening of May 2. The investigation focused
had or may have had access to the draft opinion during the period from the
laws, if any, that were potentially violated by the unauthorized disclosure; and
could be found on the Court’s IT systems and conducted formal interviews with
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ongoing town meeting.” 1 Several Court rules and policies prohibit the
1See Lewis F. Powell, Jr., What Really Goes on in the Supreme Court, in David M.
O’Brien, ed., Judges on Judging: Views from the Bench 84 (1997).
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Federal law prohibits the unauthorized disclosure or use of
information by federal employees and provides for penalties of
termination, fines, or imprisonment for unauthorized disclosure or
use of information. See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. §§ 641, 1905, 2071.
S.Ct. Human Resources Manual § 6.03 (Oct. 4, 2021). The Legal Office
presents onset and periodic ethics training to all employees and the training
The law clerk owes the appointing Justice, all other Justices, and
the Court as an institution, duties of complete confidentiality,
accuracy, and loyalty. Justices rely upon law clerks’ assistance in
exploring issues in pending cases. Justices rely on confidentiality
in discussing the performance of their judicial duties and the work
of the Court, and they expect and require complete loyalty from
their own law clerks and the clerks of all other Justices.
...
The law clerk, like the Justices, holds a position of public trust and
must comply with the demanding standards of that position.
...
Separate and apart from the duty owed by each law clerk to the
appointing Justice is the duty owed by each law clerk to the Court
as a body. Each law clerk is in a position to receive highly
confidential circulations from the Chambers of the other Justices
and other Court offices. All information from all Chambers and
Court offices pertaining to the work of the Court is confidential
2 The HR Manual also states that employees must take guidance from the Code of
Conduct for Judicial Employees. See id. § 6.01. That code provides that “[a] judicial
employee should avoid making public comment on the merits of a pending or
impending action and should require similar restraint by personnel subject to the
judicial employee's direction and control.” Code of Conduct for Judicial Employees,
Canon 3D(1). “A judicial employee should not use for personal gain any confidential
information received in the course of official duties.” Id., Canon 3D(2). “A judicial
employee should never disclose any confidential information received in the course of
official duties except as required in the performance of such duties. A former judicial
employee should observe the same restriction on disclosure of confidential information
that applies to a current judicial employee, except as modified by the appointing
authority.” Id., Canon 3D(3).
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information. “Confidential information” means any information
relating to the Court or its employees that is not made public
through means authorized by the Court or by the law clerk’s
appointing Justice, including without limitation:
administration of justice and therefore will subject the law clerk to appropriate
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sanctions.” Id., Compliance. The Chief Justice and the Legal Office discuss
the Code of Conduct with all incoming law clerks. All law clerks sign
in the federal government, and that they have read and understand the Law
Clerk Code of Conduct and the Court’s Non-Disclosure and Information System
User Agreement.
Information System User Agreement in order to obtain computer access and for
The Court’s Information System User Guidelines state that the standards
Court information systems.” S.Ct. Info. Sys. User Guidelines § 1.2 (June
2019). The Guidelines state that employees must “[e]nsure [that] unauthorized
affect the Court’s operations, assets, or individuals,” and it includes “[c]ert pool
The HR Manual provides that all employees must comply with all IT
policies, including this policy. See HR Manual § 6.07 (employees must comply
The Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges provides: “A judge should not
the judge’s direction and control.” Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges, Canon
3A(6).
• 18 U.S.C. § 401 states that “[a] court of the United States shall
have power to punish . . . such contempt of its authority . . . as
. . . [m]isbehavior of any person in its presence of so near
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thereto as to obstruct the administration of justice” and “[m]is-
behavior of any of its officers in their official transactions.”
In addition, bills were introduced in the last Congress that would have
See H.R. 7917 & S. 4455 (117th Cong) (bills to provide for penalties for the
become important to the investigation since all personnel who had access to
the draft opinion signed sworn affidavits affirming they did not disclose the
draft opinion nor know anything about who did. If the investigators determine
U.S.C. § 1001.
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C. Forensic IT information.
Court’s IT systems. The Court’s IT department did not find any indications of a
hack but continues to monitor and audit the system for any indicators of
have likewise not uncovered any evidence that an employee with elevated IT
furnish the basis for questioning of employees. In several cases, such forensic
employees. The investigative team reviewed the operating system event logs
and other logging for artifacts relevant to the draft majority opinion. One initial
focus of that review was to determine whether the draft opinion had been
publication. They found that certain employees emailed the draft document to
other employees, with approval. There was no evidence discovered that anyone
emailed the draft opinion to anyone else, although technical limitations in the
Court’s computer recordkeeping at the time made it impossible to rule out this
possibility entirely.
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The investigators were not able to readily search and analyze all event
logs because at the time the system lacked substantial logging and search
functions.
On February 10, the draft opinion was sent via email to a distribution list
consisting of law clerks and permanent personnel who work on opinions. The
vote memos were also subsequently sent to this list. There were 70 unique,
active users on the distribution list. On March 22, eight more permanent
personnel received the draft opinion via email. The investigators also found
The draft majority opinion was also distributed in hard copy to some
Chambers. The two Chambers personnel who were not on the email
distribution list would have had access to the circulated hard copies and to any
they printed out copies of the draft opinion and four were unsure; many
printed out more than one copy. And, as noted in Section D below, in the
course of their interviews, several personnel acknowledged that they did not
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treat information relating to the draft opinion consistent with the Court’s
confidentiality policies.
The investigators searched all available logs for evidence of who handled
closer inspection, which was conducted but did not result in any solid leads as
to the identity of who may have disclosed the document. Consistent with
standard policy for most law enforcement agencies, this report does not identify
any individuals who received additional scrutiny because (a) certain aspects of
the investigation may yield additional pertinent information and (b) in any
The investigators did not find any logs or IT artifacts indicating that the
out.
discovered very few confirmed print jobs of the draft majority opinion. This is
the case for two reasons. First, for some networked printers there was very
little logging capability at the time, so it is likely that many print jobs were
simply not captured. Second, the investigators learned that many printers in
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the building, including some assigned to Chambers, were locally connected
printers and not resident and tracked on the Court’s networks. This means
that the print logs for these printers were stored only locally in the printers’
internal memory. These local, desk-side printers typically keep a log of the last
60 documents printed on the printer. The investigators obtained the hard copy
print outs of the logs from 46 local printers but found nothing relevant in the
limited logs.
all personnel who had access to the draft opinion. To date, the investigators
The Court historically has not issued mobile phones to all employees.
and text detail records and billing statements for their personal devices for a
defined period to the best of their abilities. The investigators reviewed the call
and text logs retrieved but found nothing relevant in the limited logs.
D. Interviews.
that they had a duty to answer questions about their conduct as employees;
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to answer or failed to answer fully and truthfully; that the answers provided
and any resulting information or evidence could be used in the course of civil
be used against them in any criminal proceedings unless they knowingly and
available legal research history while bulk requests were pending with the
done so after the fact. Investigators later obtained, analyzed and confirmed
legal research history for all employees directly from the service providers. The
sign an affidavit, under penalty of perjury, affirming that he or she did not
disclose the Dobbs draft opinion to any person not employed by the Supreme
Court, did not disclose to any person not employed by the Supreme Court any
information relating to the Dobbs draft opinion not made public through means
authorized by the Court, and had provided all of the pertinent information
known to him or her relating to the disclosure or publication of the Dobbs draft
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opinion. Each employee was then asked to swear to the truth of the
spouses about the draft opinion or vote count, so they annotated their
The interviews provided very few leads concerning who may have publicly
disclosed the document. Very few of the individuals interviewed were willing to
speculate on how the disclosure could have occurred or who might have been
partner about the draft Dobbs opinion and the vote count, in violation of the
shared confidential details about their work more generally with their spouses
their spouses. Some personnel handled the Dobbs draft in ways that deviated
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Investigators carefully evaluated the statements and conduct of
at the Court’s decision, etc. – and also weighed behavior and evidence that
evaluated whether personnel may have had reason to disclose the Court’s draft
with Politico. Investigators also assessed the wide array of public speculation,
mostly on social media, about any individual who may have disclosed the
document. Several law clerks were named in various posts. In their inquiries,
E. Outside Assistance.
digital image of the draft opinion that was posted on Politico’s website to
compare against exemplars obtained from Court printers and copiers. There
was nothing of evidentiary value that could be gleaned from the electronic copy
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The investigative team also provided a printer that had been issued to an
employee for use at home for analysis to determine if it had any print logs
resident in the printer’s internal memory. The lab attempted to examine the
internal memory chip but was not able to retrieve any logs.
possible to determine the identity of any individual who may have disclosed the
document or how the draft opinion ended up with Politico. No one confessed to
publicly disclosing the document and none of the available forensic and other
evidence provided a basis for identifying any individual as the source of the
rule out a hack, the evidence to date reveals no suggestion of improper outside
access. Investigators also cannot eliminate the possibility that the draft
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opinion was inadvertently or negligently disclosed – for example, by being left in
Politico by a Court employee, that individual was evidently able to act without
someone who had access to an employee’s home, that person was able to act
hard copy documents from the Court to home, the absence of mechanisms to
track print jobs on Court printers and copiers, and other gaps in security or
policies.
training, and improving IT capabilities. They are listed below. More detailed
be made public. Many of these are underway and will be completed as soon as
practicable.
having access to highly sensitive information and the inability to actively track
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tailored and the use of hard copies for sensitive documents should be
2. Aside from the Court’s clear confidentiality policies and the federal
documents, and practices vary widely throughout the Court. A universal policy
requirements.
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6. Many personnel appear not to have properly understood the Court’s
leads that could identify the source of the disclosure. Whether or not any
individual is ever identified as the source of the disclosure, the Court should
take action to create and implement better policies to govern the handling of
Court-sensitive information and determine the best IT systems for security and
collaboration.
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