Ted Cruz: ‘Unimaginable’ that justice would have leaked Supreme Court draft opinion
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) on Sunday said that he did not think any of the Supreme Court justices leaked the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, pointing a finger at law clerks for the liberal justices.
“I do not believe any justice did that. I think it would be unimaginable for a justice to do this,” Cruz said of the leak on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”
Cruz’s remarks come after a leaked draft opinion, written by conservative Justice Samuel Alito, indicated the high court is set to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that established the right to an abortion.
“Let’s start off with who has access to this opinion,” the senator said Sunday. “It is a very small pool of suspects. The court itself is a small institution. It’s a big building but small institution.”
Cruz also spoke of law clerks as potential suspects in the leak, citing his own time as a law clerk for former Chief Justice William Rehnquist and “the level of confidentiality” for the clerks.
“When you finish with a draft, every law clerk has under his or her desk a burn bag,” Cruz explained. “You put it in there. That burn bag is later sealed. It’s shredded. And, in fact, it’s shredded twice. It’s shredded horizontally. It’s shredded vertically. And then it’s burned.”
“It is almost certainly one of those 36 law clerks,” he added. “And I think it is almost certainly one of the 12 law clerks that are clerking for the three liberal justices. That is a small suspect pool.”
Cruz went on to say many of the clerks are “book-smart” but not “street-smart.”
“I’m confident we don’t have a master criminal working at the court. I think there are going to be electronic records,” he added
Since the leak, Chief Justice John Roberts has ordered an investigation to find the source of the breach.
“This was a singular and egregious breach of that trust that is an affront to the Court and the community of public servants who work here,” Roberts said last week in a statement that also verified the authenticity of the opinion.