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David Lat's avatar

Sent to me by email by a reader, a former federal law clerk and AUSA, who asked me to post on their behalf:

"I think that, if you are going to work on suspicion, innuendo and deductive reasoning, you must address the pervasive rumor that the leaker is Virginia Thomas. She clearly has zero sense of propriety for the role of a Justice’s wife. She has demonstrated a willingness to use extra-Constitutional means to accomplish her political ends. It would not surprise me if she had real-time information regarding the current status of circulated opinions and dissents."

"Your writing, as usual, is excellent. I would love to see you put out a hypothetical Ginny Thomas 'If I Did It' column."

My response to this reader: I do think Ginni is A leaker, namely, the leaker to the WSJ (and maybe even the leaker to the Washington Post from last weekend's article). And I suspect her involvement in leaks to the right in years past (e.g., in cases like Bostock and NFIB v. Sebelius).

But as I was saying to Judge Goodman and Steven Skulnik, I don't know that Ginni had an incentive to leak the entire Dobbs opinion, as opposed to leaking about wobbly conservatives to the WSJ (which I think was sufficient if her goal was to keep the conservatives in line).

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Eric Rasmusen's avatar

Good example of the kind of essay all of us should think about writing sometimes, "steel-manning" those we disagree with, or at least getting inside their heads.

I heard a rumor that the impending leak was "all the buzz" at Yale the week *before* it happened.

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