Sen. Mike Lee speaks to delegates on the GOP State Conference on the Mountain America Exposition Heart in Sandy on Saturday, April 23, 2022. A leaked draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was meant to “threaten and intimidate” the U.S. Supreme Court docket, Lee stated Thursday. Adam Fondren, for the Deseret Information
A leaked draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was meant to “threaten and intimidate” the U.S. Supreme Court docket, Utah Sen. Mike Lee stated Thursday.
Lee, a Republican, stated throughout a Senate Judiciary Committee assembly that efforts by some to strain, pack and delegitimize the nation’s highest courtroom are “shameful, fallacious, and harmful.”
“Don’t threaten and intimidate the Supreme Court docket of the US. And make no mistake, that was the purpose of this leak,” he stated.
“I don’t know who did it for positive, however I’d wager cash, and I’m not a betting man, I’d wager cash that this was carried out for the aim of denigrating and delegitimizing and embarrassing and isolating these members of the Supreme Court docket of the US planning on becoming a member of Justice Alito’s opinion.”
Politico first reported Monday that the Supreme Court docket has voted to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade determination guaranteeing the best to an abortion, in keeping with an preliminary draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito circulated contained in the courtroom.
Chief Justice John Roberts ordered an investigation to search out the supply of the leak.
Loads of us have put up for a really very long time with determination making that was fallacious with out questioning the legitimacy of the Supreme Court docket. Efforts by some now to strain, pack, and delegitimize the Court docket are shameful, fallacious, and harmful. pic.twitter.com/Ai4Hw2fN9X
— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) Could 5, 2022
Lee, who served as a regulation clerk for Alito, stated the 1973 ruling was “fallacious,” legally, constitutionally and morally.
“Loads of us have put up for a really very long time with decision-making that was fallacious with out questioning the legitimacy of the Supreme Court docket,” Lee stated.
Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-In poor health., requested Lee to wrap up about eight minutes into his remarks to get on to different enterprise. Lee stated he didn’t intend to deal with the problem till he heard Durbin denigrate the conservative justices on the courtroom.
In his opening assertion, Durbin stated 4 present Republican appointees on the courtroom claimed throughout their affirmation hearings that they might respect the 50-year precedent on a lady’s proper to decide on and deal with it as settled regulation.
“They assured us they might not be activist judges. They portrayed themselves as impartial umpires, pushed not by coverage aims however a want to name balls and strikes, to stick to precedent, to easily apply the regulation to the information,” he stated. “This draft opinion tells a a lot totally different story.”
Durbin stated Alito advised him in response to a query throughout his 2006 listening to that Roe was a precedent to be revered. Former President Donald Trump’s three appointees — Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — “paid the identical lip service” to the choice, he stated.
If Alito’s opinion turns into the bulk opinion overturning the regulation it might quantity to judicial activism, he stated. These justices had been placed on the courtroom by Trump and Senate Minority Chief Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to ship that final result, Durbin stated.
If this draft turns into the bulk opinion, the Republican-appointed Justices can have proven what we have stated for years: They're judicial activists beholden to an ideological agenda. These Justices had been placed on the bench by Pres. Trump and Sen. McConnell to ship this final result. https://t.co/ueV9rq6ZpC
— Senator Dick Durbin (@SenatorDurbin) Could 5, 2022