Who Might Have Leaked Supreme Court Draft Opinion Overturning Roe v. Wade?

On 4 May 2022, Will Chamberlain, Senior Counsel to the Internet Accountability Project, sent out a series of Tweets which suggest who might have leaked the Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade. Here are the Tweets which share the discovered information and the publically available sources. What do you think?

Meet Elizabeth Deutsch. She’s currently a law clerk for Justice Breyer.

And, in my humble opinion, she’s the most likely person to have leaked the draft Supreme Court opinion in Dobbs, purporting to overturn Roe v. Wade.

🧵 pic.twitter.com/V8mfc5hG2I

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) May 4, 2022

But first, a disclaimer:

I have no inside information. This thread is speculation, based almost entirely on publicly available information. I could easily be wrong.

Cool? Cool.

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) May 4, 2022

Her academic background isn’t that uncommon for Supreme Court clerks. Yale undergrad, Yale law, and 2 British Master’s degrees, from LSE and Cambridge.

Do note the Master’s degree in Gender. pic.twitter.com/GsrYZgtMzC

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) May 4, 2022

Here’s where things start to get interesting. Every law student has to write a note – a long legal research paper, usually making a novel argument about the law.

Elizabeth Deutsch wrote hers about reproductive rights and abortion. pic.twitter.com/yXygrzxeer

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) May 4, 2022

Specifically, she argued that Obamacare’s non-discrimination provision should be interpreted to *force* Catholic hospitals to perform “emergency abortions.”

Aggressive argument – and hey, law students make aggressive arguments. pic.twitter.com/pW9GqWsKJ1

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) May 4, 2022

While in law school she wrote a NYT op-ed about reproductive rights. Sensing a theme here.https://t.co/GOfBCupY8F

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) May 4, 2022

Her career page on LinkedIn doesn’t reveal that much…until we start digging a little further. pic.twitter.com/IFC5C1qVj1

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) May 4, 2022

First, thanks to her NYT wedding announcement (of course), we know that she clerked for judge Nina Pillard. pic.twitter.com/vC68DwTig8

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) May 4, 2022

Pillard was one of the DC Circuit judges appointed by Obama and forced through by Harry Reid blowing up the filibuster.

She’s stridently pro-choice. Perhaps not shocking. pic.twitter.com/obuFEfebPn

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) May 4, 2022

After her clerkships, she got a Gruber fellowship at the ACLU for a full year.

What was she working on?

You guessed it. Abortion and reproductive rights. pic.twitter.com/eCRNH6sf30

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) May 4, 2022

But none of this proves anything. Yes, Deutsch’s career seems pretty focused on abortion. But without some connection to Josh Gerstein (the journalist who received the leak opinion) there would be no reason to suspect her.https://t.co/UurDfZhUge

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) May 4, 2022

Let’s go back to that NYT wedding announcement.

“The bride and groom met at Yale. She is a lawyer. He is a journalist.https://t.co/vvhBWL94D5

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) May 4, 2022

Isaac Arnsdorf just got hired by the Washington Post as a national political reporter. (Of course he’s on the Trump beat). pic.twitter.com/CWJMVwt54g

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) May 4, 2022

But where has he written in the past?

Oh, look. He wrote for POLITICO.

SHARING A BYLINE WITH JOSH GERSTEIN. pic.twitter.com/kJthHQWKeR

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) May 4, 2022

Looks like Gerstein and they are still bros – chatting on Twitter, interacting as recently as last year. pic.twitter.com/AKb5dZwIhc

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) May 4, 2022

So, to conclude:

We have a currently-serving Supreme Court law clerk whose career has been almost solely focused on abortion.

She wrote her law school note on abortion.
She wrote op-eds about reproductive rights.
She spent a year working on abortion for the ACLU.

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) May 4, 2022

She clerked for a stridently pro-choice appellate judge.

And it just so happens that her husband is a journalist, who shared bylines with Josh Gerstein at Politico, and it looks like they are still buds.

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) May 4, 2022

I don’t know that Elizabeth Deutsch leaked the draft opinion.

But I certainly think someone who has spent much of their academic and professional life fighting to expand the right to get an abortion could be desperate enough to do so.

FIN

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) May 4, 2022

Will Chamberlain serves as Senior Counsel to the Internet Accountability Project. He is also the owner and editor-in-chief of Human Events. Prior to relaunching Human Events, Will worked as an attorney at the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, focusing on class action litigation.

https://twitter.com/willchamberlain/status/1521685968939630592