On Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Ingraham Angle,” host Laura Ingraham called for the immediate discovery and disbarment of whoever leaked the Supreme Court’s draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.
Ingraham stated, “No matter what you think about this outcome, the leak itself represents a shocking and unprecedented breach of the court’s confidentiality, which is sacrosanct. And it’s key to the court’s ability, on any issue, to engage in the give and take and all the decision-making that’s required to reach these decisions based on legal principles, based on the Constitution, not because of political pressure.”
She added, “[T]he inviolable deal that you strike when you accept that clerkship, which is the most coveted thing you can have as a young lawyer, is that you swear confidentiality regarding everything you see and everything you hear, and especially the internal deliberations of the court, especially that. … Chief Justice Rehnquist, in our orientation session at the court, said to all of us…if you leak anything from this court, you can kiss your legal career bye-bye, done.”
Ingraham concluded, “And through the entirety of the court’s history, no matter how controversial or disruptive the court’s decisions have been, and I’m talking decades, decades of decisions on the freedom of religion, rights of criminals, same-sex marriage, none of those draft opinions ever leaked. You know why? Because everyone in that building understood that was a line that could never be crossed. And it is a sad commentary that someone in that building took it upon himself or herself to totally usurp the role of the justices and hijack the court’s deliberative process. … But once again, it looks like the left will just smash an established government process to get their way, do anything in their power to stop a principled, conservative majority from issuing a ruling on a pending case. This leaker is going to be sorely disappointed and should be immediately discovered and disbarred.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett