Supreme Court failed to reveal its 'longstanding financial ties' with expert who reviewed Dobbs leak probe: report

27 January 2023

When the U.S. Supreme Court released the results of its investigation of the leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, it revealed that it was unable to determine who the leak came from. The Court had touted former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff as an expert, and used his endorsement of the probe to validate its results. But according to CNN Supreme Court analyst Joan Biskupic, the Court did not “disclose its longstanding financial ties with” Chertoff.

Biskupic, in an article published on January 27, explains, “CNN has learned from sources familiar with the arrangements that the Court, in recent years, has privately contracted with The Chertoff Group for security assessments, some broadly covering justices’ safety and some specifically related to COVID-19 protocols at the Court itself.”

The payments to the Chertoff Group, according to Biskupic, were hardly minor ones.

“The estimated payments to Chertoff’s risk assessment firm, for consultations that extended over several months and involved a review of the justices’ homes, reached at least $1 million,” Biskupic reports. “The exact amount of money paid could not be determined. Supreme Court contracts are not covered by federal public disclosure rules and elude tracking on public databases.”

Sean Moulton, who serves as a senior policy analyst for the Project on Government Oversight, told CNN, “It’s at least a valid question why they went to someone who had a relationship with the Court. Can we be sure he is objective? That’s part of the reason for disclosures.”

Read Joan Biskupic’s full CNN’s article at this link.

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