Chief Justice John Roberts targeted by Supreme Court leak

Chief Justice John Roberts became the target of the latest batch of leaks related to the Supreme Court this week, prompting criticism from center-left commentators about Roberts's apparent efforts to find consensus on cases involving former President Donald Trump .

Last February, Roberts reportedly sent his eight colleagues a confidential memo critiquing a lower appeals court for failing to "grapple with the most difficult questions altogether" in Trump's bid to claim presidential immunity against at least some of the 2020 election subversion indictment brought by special counsel Jack Smith, according to the New York Times.

The New York Times piece primarily focused on Roberts going to great lengths to try to secure unanimity on three cases involving Trump: an effort to disqualify him under the 14th Amendment's insurrection clause , the immunity case , and a lawsuit that sought to trim the sails of Jan. 6 indictments involving an obstruction statute the Biden Justice Department had applied broadly.

In Trump v. Anderson, the court ruled 9-0, albeit for different reasons, that Trump can remain on the ballot in all 50 states. The justices ruled 6-3 to find that presidents and former presidents maintain some level of immunity from criminal indictments in Trump v. United States, and they also ruled 6-3 to narrow the application of the obstruction statute in Jan. 6 cases in Fischer v. United States.

President Joe Biden's nominee, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson , sided with an opinion that was mostly led by Republican-appointed justices in the Jan. 6 defendant case, while Justice Amy Coney Barrett , appointed by Trump, joined the minority led by Democratic-appointed justices. Only the immunity case saw a true split along ideological lines.

The revelation of a confidential memo authored by Roberts underscores the growing fragility of the court’s internal deliberations and has elevated new criticisms against the court.

John Roberts sounds delusional.
Not insane or hallucinating. But so out of touch, so high on his own supply, so deep in a bubble that Roberts—per this NYT report—thought his awfully reasoned, wildly un-American immunity ruling would be well received by the public and history. pic.twitter.com/IH2vOb6bKw

"John Roberts sounds delusional," Nicholas Grossman, a professor at the University of Illinois, wrote on X in response to the New York Times story. The comment was in reference to the chief justice's citation of Alexander Hamilton and confidence that the "arguments would soar above politics" and "stand the test of time," as the New York Times phrased a summary of the leaked memo.

Mark Paoletta, a friend of Justice Clarence Thomas and an attorney for his wife, Ginni Thomas, told the Washington Examiner there was nothing unusual about seeking consensus in high-profile cases, noting former Chief Justice Earl Warren was "celebrated" for his single opinion written in Brown v. Board of Education.

"Chief Justice Roberts did a magnificent job this past term as chief justice, including building a 9-0 decision on rejecting the partisan, destructive, and unconstitutional efforts to throw President Trump off the ballot, and he is maligned for this superb work," Paoletta said.

The Supreme Court was already marred by one of the most substantial leaks in its history just two years ago, when a draft opinion signaling the overturning of Roe v. Wade was published more than a month before the decision came down.

Paoletta said the sourcing for the New York Times story, which cited "several people at the court" and "those familiar with the proceedings," shows a level of complicity from a Left that is not getting its way on key decisions.

"These leaks also demonstrate that the liberals are bent on tearing down the Supreme Court because they are not getting their way," Paoletta said.

The leaks, once unheard of from such a venerable institution, now expose the deepening vulnerability of the highest court in the land at a time when Democrats are urging voters to turn out for the Nov. 5 election in hopes that they might reshape the Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 Republican-appointed majority.

Roberts was not always the subject of left-wing accusations against the high court's legitimacy. Although he sustained some blowback in the wake of the high court overturning abortion access precedent under Roe, the chief justice was spared from the bulk of left-wing criticism at the time because he did not co-sign Justice Samuel Alito's decision to upend Roe.

Much of the recent scrutiny of the high court has rather stemmed from what the Left describes as alleged ethical lapses by Thomas and Alito. Earlier this year, Alito's wife, Martha-Ann Alito , was highlighted in a New York Times piece for her decision to raise an inverted flag days after the Jan. 6 riot in an apparent response to a neighbor's vulgar yard sign. Now, even President Joe Biden, who was replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris as the candidate to take on Trump this November, has supported term limits and binding ethics rules for justices that critics say could obfuscate the separation of powers among the three branches.

The New York Times suggested in its new report on Roberts that the flag incident led the chief justice to reassign the authorship of opinion in the Jan. 6 obstruction case back to himself after he had tapped Alito to be its lead author.

It was not until just before the 2023 decisions that overturned the use of affirmative action for college admissions that Roberts became a bigger subject of ethics-related scrutiny of the court, particularly over his wife Jane Roberts's work , in which she recruited some of the legal industry's best talent to work at ranking law firms.

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Legal experts told the Washington Examiner in February last year that Jane Roberts's work was no different than the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg deciding tax cases while her husband, Martin Ginsburg, was the founder of the Washington, D.C., tax practice for the law firm of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver, and Jacobson.

"This double standard shows how the Democrats weaponize ethics law," Paoletta said. "They don’t care about ethics, just smearing conservative justices, and most despicably, their spouses."