‘OPERATION HIGHER COURT’

Chief Justice Roberts Under Pressure to Answer Leak Claims: Report

Two senior Democrats have sent a letter to the chief justice demanding answers.

The chief justice of the Supreme Court is facing pressure to take action on allegations of leaks, with two senior Democrats demanding answers in a letter sent Sunday. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)’s letter to Chief Justice John Roberts was driven by the most recent claims of a Supreme Court breach, according to Politico. The New York Times published an interview Nov. 19 in which a former anti-abortion rights activist said he received advanced word about the court’s ruling on Burwell v. Hobby Lobby in 2014. It provided enough time, he said, to prepare a public relations push. The lawmakers’ Sunday letter came after the pair failed to get any answers from a Sept. 7 letter asking about allegations of religious interference. “A response pointing out the existence of rules is not responsive to questions about whether those rules were broken,” Whitehouse and Johnson wrote. The Democrats appealed for information about claims of a conservative religious effort to wine and dine justices in a “decades-long, private judicial lobbying campaign,” dubbed “Operation Higher Court.”