If the Supreme Court leaker is indeed “one bad apple,” as Chief Justice John Roberts said Thursday, then it hasn’t fallen far from the tree. At a meeting of lawyers and judges in Georgia, Roberts called Monday’s leak of the bombshell opinion backing the end of Roe v. Wade “absolutely appalling,” according to CNN. The “person” or “people” behind the leak, the chief justice added, were “foolish” if they thought it would affect the court’s process or final ruling. Thursday’s remarks were Roberts’ second time commenting on the leak, after he confirmed the draft published by Politico was legitimate—though not final—on Tuesday. “To the extent that this betrayal of the confidences of the Court was intended to undermine the integrity of our operations, it will not succeed,” Roberts then thundered in a statement, vowing that the leaker would be identified. The draft, penned by Justice Samuel Alito, called the 1973 landmark court case legalizing abortion nationwide “egregiously wrong from the start.”
