The fate of the Georgia Senate runoff could have lasting ramifications on Congress‘s ability to investigate the nation’s highest court after an eye-catching report alleged Justice Samuel Alito may have leaked a 2014 Supreme Court opinion.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) said the committee would review “serious allegations” after the New York Times reported claims that Alito may have leaked the outcome of the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby case to an affluent conservative couple before the final opinion was released that year. Both Alito and the couple in question have denied such allegations in separate statements.
Such claims stemmed from former evangelical minister and anti-abortion leader Rev. Rob Schenck, who told the outlet that Gayle Wright and her husband, donors to the evangelical organization he founded, informed him about the decision weeks before the Supreme Court announced it on June 30, 2014.
WHO IS ROB SCHENCK: CAN THE MAN BEHIND THE BOMBSHELL 2014 SUPREME COURT LEAK BE TRUSTED?
Several Democratic lawmakers reacted to Schenck’s claims with alarm, including Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (RI) and Rep. Hank Johnson (GA), who chair subcommittees in their respective chambers on federal courts. The pair issued a joint statement claiming the New York Times report was “another black mark on the Supreme Court’s increasingly marred ethical record” and said they “intend to get to the bottom of these serious allegations.”
Part of Schenck’s allegations suggested the information about the 2014 decision stemmed from a dinner with the Wrights along with Alito and his wife, Martha-Ann, at the Alitos’ Virginia home after the Wrights made significant donations to the Supreme Court Historical Society.
Alito, who was appointed to the high court in 2006 by former President George W. Bush, issued a statement calling Schenck’s claims “completely false” while acknowledging his social relationship with the couple. But Whitehouse and Johnson still penned a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts demanding to know whether the court has “opened an investigation” into Alito allegedly leaking the Hobby Lobby ruling, signaling interest in an outside party to provide answers as to whether the 2014 decision was leaked ahead of its release.
“It may assist the resolution of these issues if the Court were to designate an individual knowledgeable about them to provide testimony to us about the existence or not, and the nature if they exist, of any procedures that guide inquiry, investigation and determination of factual issues related to ethics or reporting questions raised about justices’ conduct,” Whitehouse and Johnson wrote.
The Democratic lawmakers also asked for the identities of those “policing the relationship between the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court Historical Society to ensure that paid membership in the Society is not used as a means of gaining undue influence.”
Roberts responded to the request via a court aide, submitting a two-page statement about Supreme Court ethics practices without addressing several of the specific questions asked by the pair of lawmakers.
The scrutiny against Alito comes just six months after the justice wrote the consequential 6-3 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which curtailed nearly 49 years of abortion access precedent under Roe v. Wade. That opinion was also marred by a leak to the press in early May, an incident which prompted scrutiny by conservative groups and lawmakers and an investigation into the leak by the high court.
Some opinion commentators on the Left have now called for Alito’s impeachment, such as Bill Press, who claimed Tuesday that “Republicans in Congress and the right-wing media have not uttered a peep” about the recent New York Times report. However, Carrie Severino, president of the conservative Judicial Crisis Network, said the outlet “ran with the baseless allegation to facilitate a hit against Justice Alito.”
The Georgia runoff election between Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) and his Republican opponent Herschel Walker will determine whether the Senate remains a 50-50 split with the vice president’s tiebreaking vote, or whether Democrats will enjoy a 51-49 majority that would give its members of the Senate Judiciary Committee greater power to subpoena witnesses. The runoff election is on Dec. 6 and statewide early voting begins on Nov. 28.
Because of the power-sharing agreement of the 50-50 Senate, the committee can only issue subpoenas on a bipartisan basis, which means if Democrats win a 51st seat, voting to subpoena a witness becomes a much easier task and would disallow Republicans from thwarting any attempt to call forward a witness.
“We’ve been able to achieve a lot, but we can do even more with an additional senator,” Durbin told the Associated Press.
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Since Democrats lost control of the House in the midterm elections, Johnson will forfeit the gavel of the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee overseeing the courts in January. But because Democrats kept control of the Senate, Durbin and Whitehouse have a greater chance at leading the focus of hearings in the upper chamber.
The Washington Examiner made multiple attempts to contact Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee for a response, including Sens. Ted Cruz (TX), Lindsey Graham (SC), and Josh Hawley (MO).
