We might finally see the unmasking of the person who leaked the Supreme Court’s draft of the Dobbs opinion, which reversed Roe v. Wade. A former Massachusetts police officer is found guilty of murdering a pregnant witness to his own crimes. And we cover the latest developments in the Supreme Court, including efforts to continue White House renovations and a win for border security.
DOJ investigation into Dobbs leak intensifies
The DOJ’s criminal investigation into the 2022 leak of the Dobbs draft opinion – the case that would ultimately reverse Roe v. Wade – is gaining steam. Grand jury subpoenas have been issued and witness testimony before the grand jury has been requested as part of the probe. According to reporting from Fox News, “it is unclear” who received the subpoenas.
It is entirely possible that the subpoenas have been issued to not only to Supreme Court employees – especially clerks – who are suspected of the leak, but also to the Politico reporters who published the leaked draft. The investigation is led by District of Columbia U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro and has been ongoing for approximately one year.
The criminal inquiry follows the unsuccessful internal investigation ordered by Chief Justice John Roberts. According to a statement from the Supreme Court, that investigation involved 126 formal interviews of 97 Supreme Court employees, including 82 employees who “had access to electronic or hard copies of the draft opinion.” All persons interviewed denied disclosing the opinion, and investigators “found no forensic evidence indicating who disclosed the draft opinion.”
Former Massachusetts police officer convicted of murder
On November 10, a Massachusetts jury found Matthew Farwell, a former police officer, guilty of killing Sandra Birchmore and her unborn child. While murder cases are typically charged in state court, this case was brought by the Federal Government due to the fact that “Mr. Farwell murdered Ms. Birchmore because he feared that she would expose his sexual exploitation of her when she was a minor and that he met her for sex while he was on duty as a police officer.”
Farwell staged the murder and her apartment to make it appear that she died by suicide by hanging – an effort that originally convinced the medical examiner and helped him avoid state-level charges.
The federal investigation uncovered evidence that Farwell invited himself over to Birchmore’s apartment on the night of her death, that his DNA was found on the strap used to hang her, and that he was on video entering and leaving her building around the time of her death. Evidence further showed that the local officials – who were now investigating one of their own – did very little to investigate Ms. Birchmore’s death: they closed their investigation “without getting a single search warrant”, they did not attend her autopsy, and they stated they needed an investigation into this matter like a “bullet in the head.”
Farwell faces mandatory life in prison without the chance for parole.
The latest developments at the Supreme Court
The Trump Administration has asked the Supreme Court to reverse a District Court’s ruling that prevents the construction of the White House ballroom and security infrastructure improvements to the East Wing. In the alternative, the Trump Administration has asked the Supreme Court to agree to consider the case and to hear it on the merits. We find it likely that the Administration will be allowed to continue the construction.
On November 9, the Supreme Court issued an unsigned per curiam opinion that allows the Trump Administration to continue its border-construction project in the Big Bend Sector of the U.S.-Mexico border. This includes the construction of border security initiatives in Big Bend National Park. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the sole dissenter.
Also on November 9, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Nielsen v. Watanabe, where it considered a suit brought by an inmate who alleges that a paramedic’s failure to treat him after he was injured in a gang fight “violated his constitutional rights.” At argument, the conservative Justices did not seem willing to want to allow the constitutional claim to proceed. They noted that there are other remedies available to prisoners whose were injured as a result of federal employees at a federal prison, such as the Federal Tort Claims Act.
In other news:
On November 10, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals blocked court orders that allowed the Department of Justice to obtain LinkedIn data of journalists as part of an investigation into “a leak of highly sensitive information related to our national security.”
A Florida judge has ruled that President Trump’s $10 billion defamation case against the BBC can proceed. President Trump’s lawsuit accuses the BBC of doctoring his January 6, 2021 speech at “to make it seem that Trump was directly urging violence” at the U.S. Capitol building.
The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the largest labor union representing media artists, actors, and journalists, has filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of journalist Catherine Herridge, who was required by a federal District Court to reveal a confidential source in a civil case under threat of a fine of $800 per day until she complied with that order. Herridge has requested the Supreme Court hear her case to determine whether she may be compelled to name her source under the First Amendment and the Federal Rules of Evidence.
