Supreme Court Says Justices Weren’t Required to Sign Sworn Affidavits Like Other Employees in Leak Investigation

AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File

The marshal of the U.S. Supreme Court issued a statement Friday saying she spoke with justices but did not ask them sign sworn affidavits during the probe to identify who leaked the draft of a landmark opinion to Politico in May.

The decision, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, struck down Roe v. Wade and ruled that abortion is not a constitutionally protected right. The opinion overturned 49 years of precedent.

On Thursday, the court released its report on the investigation and stated that “it is not possible to determine the identity of any individual who may have disclosed the document.”

The report says nearly 100 Supreme Court employees were interviewed as part of the probe. All of them denied leaking the draft opinion. However, it did not say whether the justices were interviewed.

Marshal Gail Curley issued a statement on Friday and noted that justices were not asked to sign sworn affidavits, which other employees were required to do:

During the course of the investigation, I spoke with each of the Justices, several on multiple occasions. The Justices actively cooperated in this iterative process, asking questions and answering mine. I followed up on all credible leads, none of which implicated the Justices or their spouses. On this basis, I did not believe that it was necessary to ask the Justices to sign sworn affidavits.

Interestingly, the statement says the marshal “spoke with each of the Justices.” It does not use the term “interview” as the report does when describing interactions between investigators and court employees. That perhaps suggests the justices were treated much differently in the investigations than other employees.

Slate writer Mark Joseph Stern, who covers the court, said the marshal’s reason for not asking justices to sign statements makes little sense. He tweeted:

The marshal’s justification for not making the justices sign sworn affidavits is odd. She says no “credible leads … implicated the justices or their spouses.” OK, but surely that was true of many of the other 82 people who were interviewed. Yet they had to sign affidavits.

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