Texas Senator Ted Cruz speculated that a liberal law clerk, "most likely" for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, leaked the high court's majority draft opinion on overturning Roe v. Wade.
Supreme Court justices have been under intense pressure after a leaked draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito showed a majority voted to reverse the landmark 1973 decision that made abortion legal throughout the nation. Republicans are demanding federal investigations into the culprit's identity.
On his podcast Verdict, Cruz and his co-host Michael Knowles discussed the SCOTUS leak and described it as "a big damn deal." Cruz said he didn't believe one of Alito's colleagues was behind the leak, but thinks a clerk from one of three liberal judges is behind the uproar.
Ted Cruz recklessly speculates, with zero proof, that he believes it was a clerk with Justice Sotomayor that leaked the SCOTUS brief. pic.twitter.com/h1xCWlAXgC
— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) May 5, 2022
"I think it is very very likely a law clerk. And it is very very likely a law clerk for one of the three liberal justices," Cruz said.
"If I were to guess, the most likely justice for whom the law clerk is clerking is Sonia Sotomayor because she's the most partisan of the justices."
When asked why he thinks Sotomayor's clerk may have leaked the document, Cruz claims the justice is the one most likely to hire "wild-eyed partisans as clerks."
Cruz said the source of the leak is likely to be someone "willing to burn the place down" because they were upset.
In the 2020 term, Sotomayor voted with the other liberal justices at least 73 percent of the time while voting with a conservative justice no more than 59 percent of the time, according to the Harvard Law Review.
The senator went on to admit that he has no proof to back up his theory.
"I have no evidence of that, I'm just making an inference," Cruz said.
Others believe the leak may have come from the right in an effort to keep conservative justices' votes in line.
"My hypothesis is that this was leaked from the right in an attempt to prevent defectors from the absolutism of the draft," said law professor Carolyn Shapiro.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court confirmed the authenticity of the draft but stressed the leak would not "undermine the integrity" of the court's operations. Chief Justice John Roberts indicated that he directed the court's marshal to launch an investigation into the source of the leak.
"To the extent, this betrayal of the confidences of the Court was intended to undermine the integrity of our operations, it will not succeed," Roberts said in a statement. "The work of the Court will not be affected in any way."
Newsweek reached out to Cruz, Sotomayor and the Supreme Court for comment.
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