Not since Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein refused for decades to disclose the identity of their Watergate source has Washington been as eager to unmask a leaker.
Maybe it was a liberal law clerk who leaked the draft opinion in the Supreme Court’s biggest case in years, hoping to gin up outrage among Democrats at the prospect of an end to legal abortions. Or it was an anti-abortion court employee fearful that the justices would end up backing away from their early agreement to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark case legalizing the procedure. Or perhaps it was one of the justices themselves, frustrated by the direction of their secret internal debates about one of the country’s most polarizing issues. Not since Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein refused for decades to disclose the identity of their shadowy, meet-me-in-the-parking-garage Watergate source has Washington been as eager to unmask a leaker. But while the city’s lobbyists, journalists and political operatives trade theories over encrypted messages and social media, Col. Gail A. Curley, the 11th marshal of the United States Supreme Court has been given the task of rooting out the truth in what Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. called “a singular and egregious breach” of the court’s operations. Hours after Politico posted what appeared to be a photocopy of a Feb.10 draft opinion in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the chief justice confirmed the document’s authenticity and did the most Washington of things: He ordered Colonel Curley to conduct a thorough leak investigation. And with that, the bright D.C. spotlight turns to a former senior Army attorney whose legal work took her from the United States to Germany and Afghanistan. The second woman to hold the marshal position at the court, Colonel Curley serves as the chief security officer, facilities administrator and head of contracting for the third branch of the federal government. She manages about 260 employees, including the court’s police force, and is a voice that might be recognizable to anyone who has attended or listened to any of the court’s oral arguments. “Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!” she announces at the start of every public meeting of the court. “All persons having business before the honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States, are admonished to give their attention, for the court is now sitting. God save the United States and this honorable court.” People familiar with court operations said Colonel Curley is not normally charged with conducting investigations. But it will now be up to her to help save the reputation of the court, which has been badly tarnished by the disclosure, as many Washingtonians lamented this week. The contours of her investigation are opaque, even by Washington standards. It is unclear how she might conduct an inquiry, whom she will interview, and what punishments the court could dole out if she tracks down the perpetrator. More than most of the federal government, the Supreme Court operates in almost total secrecy — a tradition that helps the court maintain a sense of being above the contentious political wars that so often consume the executive and legislative branches. On Wednesday, the court offered no insight into how the leak investigation will be conducted and did not respond to requests for comment.
