the Court Officers, will need to assess whether to adopt some or all of the more detailed recommendations.
I. Conduct of the Investigation
The draft majority opinion was circulated on February 10, 2022. Politico published the draft opinion on the evening of May 2. The investigation focused on Court personnel – temporary (law clerks) and permanent employees – who had or may have had access to the draft opinion during the period from the initial circulation until the publication by Politico. In the initial phase, investigators sought to gain an understanding of the details of the opinion circulation process; the Court’s policies and training addressing confidentiality; laws, if any, that were potentially violated by the unauthorized disclosure; and IT policies in place concerning the handling of sensitive information. The investigators preserved, collected, and reviewed any forensic information that could be found on the Court’s IT systems and conducted formal interviews with Court personnel. The investigative team also enlisted external technical assistance when necessary to examine specific items of evidence.
A. Rules and Court Policies Protecting Confidentiality.
By long-standing tradition, the Court’s deliberations are secret. As Justice Powell explained, “[t]he integrity of judicial decision making would be impaired seriously if we had to reach our judgments in the atmosphere of an
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