Former U.S. Attorney General William Barr responded Tuesday to the leak of an initial draft of the majority opinion of the Supreme Court’s ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization by suggesting that a crime may have been committed and that a special counsel may need to be appointed to deal with the matter.
Barr, who made the remarks during an interview on SiriusXM’s “The Megyn Kelly Show,” said that the leak was unlike anything he had ever seen.
“I was flabbergasted. It really is unprecedented,” Barr said. “Our institutions have become increasingly politicized, but I never imagined this could happen to the Supreme Court, which has always protected its confidentiality, and for someone to let this out in order to influence the final decision is really beyond the pale.”
On the matter of what an investigation would look like, Barr responded, “I think the Chief would have had the option, and perhaps he still will, to appoint a special counsel, not in the classical criminal sense, but the court can appoint a counsel and he could bring in a former U.S. attorney or someone with a criminal law background, and I’m sure he would get the support he needed from the FBI or any other law enforcement agency.”
Barr said that a grand jury would likely be needed to get to the bottom of the case, which would mean that it’s a criminal case, in order to be able “to compel the truth.”
“It could be obstructing the administration of justice, the due process of justice,” Barr said. “Obstruction means you’re attempting to influence, you know, through some kind of wrongdoing.”
Barr said that he did not think that it was a “stretch” to think that criminal charges could be filed in the case.
“I think they should spare no effort to get to the bottom of what happened,” Barr said. “Once you expose the Court to this kind of popular pressure and sort of potential mob psychology, it’ll divert them from reaching a principled decision based on the merits. We go to a lot of trouble in our system to insulate the court so that they can do what they think is just under the law and, you know, this means that we’re going to have sort of this street justice played out in front of the Supreme Court when they’re considering controversial cases.”
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