Politico’s publication of the Supreme Court draft falls into a hazy area of press protections.

The Supreme Court docket is grappling with one of the vital vital disclosures of a authorities secret in half a century: the discharge of a draft opinion that units the framework for overturning Roe v. Wade, writes The New York Instances’s Jeremy Peters.

However not like the Pentagon Papers in 1971 — whose supply, the protection contractor Daniel Ellsberg, was indicted by a federal grand jury for theft — this time the leak got here from contained in the constructing.

Whether or not the journalists who revealed the article will face repercussions continues to be an open query. For a lot of a causes, Mr. Peters writes, the case falls right into a murky zone of the First Modification, which usually protects the publication of a leak however not the leaker:

• There isn’t any regulation or written code of conduct that means how an investigation into such a breach ought to proceed, or whether or not the journalists at Politico who introduced the draft to gentle shall be swept up within the sort of felony investigation that high Republican lawmakers have demanded.

• Not like the Pentagon Papers, the federal government examine of the nation’s involvement in Vietnam, the Supreme Court docket draft opinion was not categorised info. Leaking categorised info is a criminal offense. As a substitute, the current leak broke the Supreme Court docket’s conventions for secrecy, an offense that has been punishable with virtually sure profession loss of life however little else.

• Given the magnitude of the leak and the aggressiveness with which federal prosecutors have pursued high-profile leakers and journalists lately, a felony investigation just isn’t unthinkable, authorized specialists have mentioned. And whereas nobody is suggesting that Politico broke any legal guidelines in the middle of publishing its article in regards to the draft opinion, that doesn’t imply the journalists concerned can be spared from authorities stress to disclose their sources if a grand jury was convened to contemplate expenses in opposition to the leaker.

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