Former President Donald Trump called for the arrest of several journalists and editors on Thursday in a rare and remarkable statement from a former president.
“Arrest the reporter, publisher, editor – you’ll get your answer fast. Stop playing games and wasting time!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account while sharing a news article about the Supreme Court announcing it had been unable to find who leaked the draft decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization last May.
Trump also wrote, “The Supreme Court has just announced it is not able to find out, even with the help of our ‘crack’ FBI, who the leaker was on the R v Wade scandal. They’ll never find out, & it’s important that they do. So, go to the reporter & ask him/her who it was. If not given the answer, put whoever in jail until the answer is given. You might add the publisher and editor to the list. Stop playing games, this leaking cannot be allowed to happen. It won’t take long before the name of
The freedom of the press to publish information is, of course, protected by the First Amendment, although journalists have been put in jail in the past for refusing to reveal sources when ordered to do so by a court. Judith Miller, for example, was jailed in 2005 under such circumstances. “If journalists cannot be trusted to guarantee confidentiality,” Miller told Judge Thomas F. Hogan at the time, “then journalists cannot function and there cannot be a free press.”
Regarding the Dobbs leak, the Supreme Court’s report concluded “it is not 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 document,” the report read, adding:
While investigators and the Court’s IT experts cannot absolutely rule out a hack, the evidence to date reveals no suggestion of improper outside access.
The draft opinion was published in May by Politico and set off a firestorm in American politics. Chief Justice John Roberts vowed to find who leaked the draft, which he called a “betrayal,” but ensured would not undermine the court’s ability to function.
“To the extent this betrayal of the confidences of the Court was intended to undermine the integrity of our operations, it will not succeed,” Roberts