Dan Bongino, the FBI’s deputy director, has announced that the bureau is reexamining the long-controversial investigations into the leaking of the Dobbs decision, the pipe bombs left on Jan. 6th and the cocaine found at the White House. All three investigations led to speculation over political influences on the unresolved outcome. I am aware of no credible evidence of such influence, but there is reason to hope that this reopening of the investigation into the Dobbs leak could bring accountability for the most egregious violation of ethics in the modern Court’s history.
There have been rumors for months that the Court had zeroed in on one or two likely culprits. However, the failure to find the person or persons had led to continued speculation. In reviewing a pattern of leaks from the Court, Professor Josh Blackmun, a close Court watcher, went so far as to suggest that it is “likely that [Justice Elena] Kagan, or at least Kagan surrogates, are behind these leaks.”
There is reason to hope that this renewed investigation might be different. First, the last investigation was largely controlled by the marshals. It does appear that they did an exhaustive job and notably had over a hundred possible suspects sign affidavits of their innocence under penalty of perjury. The nine justices were not required to sign such forms. The FBI, however, is the world’s premier investigative organization.
Second, and most importantly, there is the passage of time. Time tends to be the undoing of many criminals. If this were a clerk or employee (as opposed to a justice), there is a chance that they have revealed their role to acquaintances. The FBI will often interview associates who, like the suspect, are subject to prosecution for lying to federal officers in such interviews.
For the culprit, making another false statement to federal agents would draw serious consequences, as a court might not treat the crimes as running concurrently. 18 U.S.C. § 1001 carries a potential five-year jail sentence, and any culprit would face major aggravating factors, including the misuse of official duties and undermining the judicial system.
Many of us were deeply disappointed in the result of the investigation. While there have been a few prior leaks, the Supreme Court has been largely immune from the weaponized leaks so characteristic of Washington.
In a city that floats on leaks, the court was an island of integrity. And more has been lost at the court than just confidentiality. There is a loss of confidence, even innocence, at an institution that once aspired to be something more than a source for the New York Times.
The person responsible for this act shredded the traditions and values of the Court. The harm to the Court, both as an institution and a community, was immense. I have no reason to doubt the good-faith efforts of the marshals in this investigation. With the possibility of a lone wolf actor, it was obviously a daunting task. However, the addition of both the FBI and the passage of time may offer hope for a resolution.
When the FBI puts J6 resources into an investigation they always solve it. The FBI can comb through the debris of an airliner attack like Lockerbie and find a tiny piece that tells them what happened, they use ATM and phone locations to track granny from Idaho to DC on J6. If the FBI wants to solve these cases they will solve them.
Hey, as anyone seen KJP or Mayorkas in the last two months?
KJP has been on the news circuits saying that Biden is cancer-free.
https://babylonbee.com/news/karine-jean-pierre-insists-joe-biden-is-cancer-free
Nailed it
Btw, we will never know the truth!
Politico knows who leaked it to them, no? Why not start there?
The point being missed is the fact the current administration is willing to get to the bottom of these three events and lay out the evidence for the American People to consider unlike the previous administration that were more akin to Cats covering Poop than living up to their obligations levied upon them by the Constitution and Oaths taken.
No matter the outcome of these renewed investigations Patel and Bongino should be applauded for their devotion to the Constitution, the Law, and the principles that are the base for our system of justice and democracy. We cannot say that at all about the Biden Administration and its leadership including the Attorney General, DOJ, FBI Director, and senior staff both inside the White House and outside the White House.
Hopefully the leaker, bomber, and doper shall be clearly identified and anyone who participated in a cover up or improper termination of the the investigations be dealt with to the harshest manner possible under the law.
@Ralph
‘. . . unlike the previous administration that were more akin to Cats covering Poop . . .’
That is absolutely perfect. 👍🏼
Jonathan: You must be kidding! You can’t be serious! Under AG Bondi, Kash Patel and Dan Bongino do you really think there will be a serious investigation of the Dobbs decision leak? You gave away the plot. The investigation will focus on the “liberal” wing of the Court–especially Justice Kagan. This investigation is only going to be a witch hunt!
You apparently think the FBI, under the leadership of Bongino, will find the culprit despite what you admit was an “exhaustive job” by the Marshals. If they could not find the leaker what makes you think Bongino will have better luck? Bongino has no qualifications to lead a dog parade let alone an FBI investigation of the Supreme Court! His only claim to fame is that he was a Fox host and a right-wing MAGA podcaster who pushed the “deep state” conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was “stolen” from DJT. That’s how he got his appointment by the president. In 2018 Bongino declared his mission in life: “My entire life right now is about owning the libs”.
Bongino is an unqualified henchman who’s sole job is to go after DJT’s political enemies. The FBI is no longer the independent “world’s premier investigative organization” as you claim. It is now DJT’s Gestapo!
Poor Denny, still doesn’t see common sense.
Why wouldn’t the investigation start with investigating the most likely culprits? Liberals hate not having access to killing babies, so why wouldn’t the liberal justices?
The previous admin didn’t want to find the culprit, which is why the Marshals slow-walked it for 3 years, why they slow-walked the J6 indictments, why they slow-walked the pipe bomb, why they slow-walked charging 47 with anything until it became politically relevant.
Denny goes Rabble Rabble, I respond with Rabble Rabble.
-Rabble
Bongino has no qualifications to lead a dog parade let alone an FBI investigation of the Supreme Court!
Given your historical failures on this blog, you have proven you lack the qualifications to render such an opinion. The mere fact that you are disparaging Deputy Director Bongino is a sure sign he’s extremely qualified.
@Dennis
You, like ‘Anonymous’, are an idiot. There are times I think you are the same idiot. Enjoy the honeypot while it lasts, because nobody is listening to the troll farms anymore. Your employers are basically lighting dollars on fire, and in the end, that means you will be cut loose as an accounting rounding error. I doubt we’ll see you much after that.
If by some odd chance you are actually a person who is this contrarian (and I doubt it, but there’s always room for error), you are going to have a very tough time as the culture course corrects, which it is doing, more and more by the day.
“Bongino has no qualifications to lead . . .”
Yet again, the Left’s smear mongers lie about a person’s career.
Bongino spent 16 years in law enforcement, first with the NYPD then with the Secret Service.
Justice Roberts should step up and volunteer to take a polygraph and encourage all the other justices to do the same. You can rest assured that at least one justice will refuse.
It’s always a bit disconcerting when 3 high profile cases like this seem to die with a whimper and then disappear from the news cycle. It suggests that something may have been found or the path of the investigation was going in an undesired direction and it was better to just lose enthusiasm for the case and the investigation slowly was starved of resources and died. These are highly political mysteries and occurred in an administration that was adroit and fanatical about suppressing news and information. Nothing may come of it but a renewal of the investigation is warranted.
The Marshals service being used in the Supreme Court was an interesting choice and seemed likely to not be handled well. I’m not if the sure if FBI of that time would have been any better. Their leadership seemed to be inept and totally out of contact with the field agents. Also one has to wonder whether the best agents were assigned to a case that someone did not want it bear fruit.
Of course the field agents may have had the investigative talents dulled by investigating all those fascist school boards and radicalized Catholics .
It seems an impossible task, but in this era of total coverage 24/7, to not expose such wrong doings in all levels of government implies that we cannot trust ANY function of government.
The Dobbs leak came from one of the law clerks, and it came from one of the clerks of the liberal justices so that’s about 15 to 20 law clerks… You send the FBI out and put a lie detector on each and every one of them. But I do question whether they leaked it without the approval of their boss, it’s hard to imagine one of the clerks leaked Dobbs out without prior approval from their judge.
In the old days, whenever the FBI learned the whereabouts of a major fugitive, it would put her or him on the “Most Wanted List.” Then, not long after, they would capture the criminal and announce (boastfully) that they were successful in nailing a most wanted fugitive. This well may be the thinking behind Bongino’s opening of these three investigations.
They may already know the answers to who committed these crimes, but they want to build a little suspense so that when they publicly identify the culprits, we’ll be impressed with the FBI’s skullduggery. The Dobbs case may be a bit tougher because the chief suspect of the leak, a former clerk, is likely long gone to her reward as a bigtime position in a white shoe liberal law firm. Still, all these folks will need to lawyer up, as they say, and be warned about the perils of lying to federal agents. If they take the Fifth, Bondi will grant immunity and force testimony.
That should end the matter there and then. Professional people can’t take a hit like this and survive. The Coke case, too, should have lots of video evidence to show who went to those lockers at the time in question. This suspect can be questioned and Bondi can force them to talk, too.
The pipe bomb case was probably an “inside” job by either a fed or a local cop looking to score brownie points for “discovering” the bombs. The plan, however, went awry when too many people were there and the culprit’s plan got out of hand. Don’t forget, during the Biden years Secret Service hired a bunch of strange people, some of whom suffered mental lapses in a job they were ill-equipped for. Hero-on-the-spot is a well known syndrome that we see occasionally with volunteer firefighters who set fires to make themselves heroes. Does it occur in law enforcement? We shall see.
Is leaking a draft SCOTUS opinion a crime? What crime is the FBI investigating?
Good question. I’m curious now too, never thought about that…it’s not really criminal in nature, just policy and procedure….
For starters I would think Obstruction of Justice might apply here. Also, the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 might apply. Last year, the Supreme Court clarified the use of this statute in the Fischer case when it ruled that the statute could only be applied when the defendant impaired a physical document or object used in an official proceeding or attempted to do so. That seems better fitted to what we have here. Ironically, this charge had been leveled against some J6 defendants and the SCOTUS said this was improper. There may be other charges involving misfeasance by a government employee, as well as potential administrative charges for unauthorized disclosure of an official court document. The person’s “intent” would be a vital element of the crime. Was it to further a cause of some sort? To interfere with an official court process? To influence improperly a court decision? My guess is that we have all the answers to these questions already for the suspect in mind. Sunlight, as Justice Brandeis advised, is the best disinfectant and maybe just the exposure of this person should fix the problem and deter others from doing the same thing.
It led to a crazed looney from CA who stalked Kavanaugh at his home. Remember that?
The degrading of our institutions by the left is a crime against the nation, not just the body in which it occurred. Public trust is fundamental to our self-governing democratic republic. Without it, the country will devolve into anarchy and possibly an authoritarian system will take its place. That seems to be the point of much of the Dems policies and actions. The Dems are currently lost focusing on how to communicate to the public when their real problem is they dare not reveal their true policies. But we know them by their actions now and that will be difficult to overcome. The investigations should go forward and reveal those who are guilty. At the very least, the public should know. Public approbation may be the only accoutability they experience but the truth may heal in some small measure the harm that has been done to the nation.
“[T]he country will devolve into anarchy and possibly an authoritarian system will take its place.”
That has been Soros’ strategy for decades. That’s why he keeps financing revolving door DA’s.
Let’s be serious “they don’t know who the leaker is, they don’t know who the pipe bomber is”? They know.
Does anyone believe the Bide FBI, run by Wray and the DOJ under Garland? The Justices have a good idea who leaked? Roberts knows. Let FBI really do a detailed investigation and see what they find. Under Patal/Bongino these two will look under every rock, I suspect they have an idea where to look. If found make it Public and then Prosecute.
That may be the only path to fixing our national distrust of public officials. We need to see who are the bad actors, and we need to expose their motivations and then align those motivations with the ideologies of the dem prog/left. Shout out to the world just who and what these people are and what their end game is.
That leak was not the worst legal breach in history. These constant, conflicting, contrary, yet arbitrary opinions by district court judges has been. That danged leak should be charged to law schools that have taught young lawyers – none with a single shred of experience – to decide on cases and make public disclosures on their own recognizance. These egomaniacal children, embossed by TikTok influencers, are play-acting. Few will be successful lawyers; most will head for judgeships – the motherload of power in their world.
That is a frightening thought. But we can see it happening here in Upstate New York.
I find it frightening each night when I scan our local “Newzjunky” sight in northern New York where they list all of the foolish concepts coming out of Albany and you know that most of that junk is coming straight out of NYC where, next to california, all the crazies reside. If we, in NY could just sell the NYC cesspool to France or Venezuela, we would be such a great state to live in.
If you are able, just leave New York. I did, and my family and I have been much better for having done so.
We would but we are retired, our family business is tied to Fort Drum and all our family is here. I would be nice, but if enough of us stay and fight the NYC leviathan, perhaps we can turn this state around. I would love to see Stefanik as Governor to replace that stink hole that is Albany down to NYC.
As a former investigator, I have to disagree with the “passage of time” as an investigative plus. Cases go cold quickly, evidence is lost or destroyed, memories fade etc. It’s why cold case investigations are so difficult. But, kudos to the current admin for at least trying.
Evidence grows cold over time. It is highly unlikely that the FBI will at this time find an email log or a copy machine record that was missed earlier. Physical evidence that might have been missed earlier is likely gone now.
But Turley is correct, secrets have a way of getting out. Someone knows who leaked this.
Likely more than one person knows or knows something. Over time usually those who know tend to tell others.
Often that is not admissible in a criminal trial – though lying to the FBI about it is.
Regardless, this is not so much about criminally prosecuting the culprit as establ;ishing who did this. Merely knowing who did this will go a long way towards assuring it does not happen again.
It is somewhat clear that the rapid shutdown of the investigation by CJ Roberts is evidence that they know who provided the document. It is also clear that it directly involves a sitting Justice. Which one is the bigger question??????? The unethical behavior of Kagan, Jackson, and Sotamyor(sp) over the last several years suggests their effort to circumvent the past 240+ years of SCOTUS decision making is a goal……
That need not be true.
Johnson went out of his way to interfere with the Kennedy assassination investigation and dictate that the finding would be Oswald acted alone.
That does not mean he was involved or knew that or who else was involved.
Only that he knew that almost any answer other than Oswald acted alone would tear the country apart.
Roberts does not need to know who did this to know that any answer damages the court.
I am not defending roberts, only asserting that shutting down the investigation prematurely does not have to mean they know who did it. Roberts has no reason to want this question answered. There is no answer that is good for him.
I often urge the professor to call a spade a spade. The left is a fascist movement seeking one party power based on race and other identities. But that aside, I rarely disagree with what he has to say. Today is one of those days.
When the leak occurred, a friend encouraged me to read the statute empowering the marshals. They do a lot of things. But one thing they do not do is investigation. The FBI was not asked to investigate because the Court did not want to find the culprit. Can you imagine the ramifications of that, particularly if a Justice was involved? And the Marshalls may have been complicit. They did not, for example, interview at least some of the spouses or significant others of the clerks.
Sure, there are penalties for signing a false affidavit but people do it everyday in the thousands in our country. Probably more than that. I don’t know the number. I just see a lot of lies when reading affidavits or listening to people on the stand. There are rarely, almost never, any consequences, Even when the lies are beyond reasonable dispute.
I hope they find someone. But I doubt it.
If it were a justice (Kagan), is it impeachable? Do you believe they would step down from disgrace?
Turley has been on the losing side of the impeachment debate.
The multiple impeachments of Trump have established that anything is impeachable.
The house can impeach for any reason at all. The constitution has no provision for review of impeachment beyond a trial in the senate. Only the senate can decide they do not like the basis for a house impeachment.
The Biden FBI obviously knew who the leaked the Dobbs decision, which is why they slow walked and shut the investigation down. It should not be hard to figure out even now.
The FBI never investigated the leak. Why on earth do you think that the “Biden FBI obviously” knew who the leaker was? “Obvious” is hilarious!
Ah…”The Passage of Time”! Why does that phrase remind me of the “word salads” so frequently and eloquently spewed by the recently defeated Democratic presidential nominee?