‘Grave and Unforgivable Sin’: Bill Barr Says Supreme Court Leaker Should Be ‘In Jail’

Former Attorney General Bill Barr appeared on Fox News Wednesday to offer his reaction to the leak of a draft opinion of the Supreme Court. He said the leaker should be found and put in jail.

On Monday, Politico published the opinion, which was written by Justice Samuel Alito. It strikes down the landmark privacy cases Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the former of which famously established a constitutional right to abortion in 1973.

The opinion’s authenticity has been confirmed by the court and the leaking of it has rankled conservatives.

“Do you think that this person will be found?” asked Martha MacCallum. “There’s an argument in some ways that they would like to be found, eventually because they could sort of build a cottage industry off of being the person that leaked this in some aspects.”

Barr gave a dramatic response.

“Well, I hope they build it while they’re in jail,” he replied. “Because this is a grave and unforgivable sin. And I think it is likely they’re gonna find out who leaked it. It’s a relatively small group of people that could possibly have done that, and I think the full weight of the law has to be brought against them.”

The initial consensus among legal scholars is that whoever leaked the opinion did not commit a crime.

“As far as I can tell, there is no federal criminal law that directly prohibits disclosure of a draft legal opinion,” said Orin Kerr, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

“You could try to create some type of attenuated criminal theory like theft, but it’s not generally viewed as a crime,” said George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley.

Barr said he disagrees with such assessments.

“I think there are a number of federal statutes that potentially cover this, including fraud against the United States, which involves wrongdoing intended to impede the functioning of the government. There are also statues on obstructing or trying to interfere or influence the due administration of justice by committing acts like this.

And it could also involve using government documents for one’s own benefit, converting government documents. So there are a number of criminal statutes that were potentially violated here,” Barr concluded.

Watch above via Fox News.

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