Speaking at a conference Friday, Justice Clarence Thomas said that the Supreme Court had changed since the shocking leak of the draft opinion suggesting an imminent decision to ban abortion.
“When you lose that trust, especially in the institution that I’m in, it changes the institution fundamentally,” he said.
“You begin to look over your shoulder. It’s like a kind of infidelity that can explain it, but you can’t undo it.”
Thomas added that before the May 2 leak, it was “beyond anyone’s imagination” that a line of a draft opinion could be unofficially released to the public let alone an entire 100-page draft.
“If someone said that one line of one opinion” would be leaked, Thomas said, the answer would have clearly been “Oh, that’s impossible. No one would ever do that.”
“Now that trust or that belief is gone forever,” he said.