Meet Elizabeth Deutsch. She's currently a law clerk for Justice Breyer.
And, in my humble opinion, she's the most likely person to have leaked the draft Supreme Court opinion in Dobbs, purporting to overturn Roe v. Wade.
🧵
But first, a disclaimer:
I have no inside information. This thread is speculation, based almost entirely on publicly available information. I could easily be wrong.
Cool? Cool.
Her academic background isn't that uncommon for Supreme Court clerks. Yale undergrad, Yale law, and 2 British Master's degrees, from LSE and Cambridge.
Do note the Master's degree in Gender.
Here's where things start to get interesting. Every law student has to write a note - a long legal research paper, usually making a novel argument about the law.
Elizabeth Deutsch wrote hers about reproductive rights and abortion.
Specifically, she argued that Obamacare's non-discrimination provision should be interpreted to *force* Catholic hospitals to perform "emergency abortions."
Aggressive argument - and hey, law students make aggressive arguments.
While in law school she wrote a NYT op-ed about reproductive rights. Sensing a theme here.
Her career page on LinkedIn doesn't reveal that much...until we start digging a little further.
First, thanks to her NYT wedding announcement (of course), we know that she clerked for judge Nina Pillard.
Pillard was one of the DC Circuit judges appointed by Obama and forced through by Harry Reid blowing up the filibuster.
She's stridently pro-choice. Perhaps not shocking.
After her clerkships, she got a Gruber fellowship at the ACLU for a full year.
What was she working on?
You guessed it. Abortion and reproductive rights.
But none of this proves anything. Yes, Deutsch's career seems pretty focused on abortion. But without some connection to Josh Gerstein (the journalist who received the leak opinion) there would be no reason to suspect her.
Isaac Arnsdorf just got hired by the Washington Post as a national political reporter. (Of course he's on the Trump beat).
But where has he written in the past?
Oh, look. He wrote for POLITICO.
SHARING A BYLINE WITH JOSH GERSTEIN.
Looks like Gerstein and they are still bros - chatting on Twitter, interacting as recently as last year.
So, to conclude:
We have a currently-serving Supreme Court law clerk whose career has been almost solely focused on abortion.
She wrote her law school note on abortion.
She wrote op-eds about reproductive rights.
She spent a year working on abortion for the ACLU.
She clerked for a stridently pro-choice appellate judge.
And it just so happens that her husband is a journalist, who shared bylines with Josh Gerstein at Politico, and it looks like they are still buds.
I don't know that Elizabeth Deutsch leaked the draft opinion.
But I certainly think someone who has spent much of their academic and professional life fighting to expand the right to get an abortion could be desperate enough to do so.
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Earlier today we highlighted some individual prosecution decisions made by the now-suspended State Attorney Monique Worrell.
Now, let’s take a broader look at @GovRonDeSantis’ executive order to see how Worrell was derelict in her duty.
We’ll start with gun crime.
Florida has mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes.
The Osceola County Sheriff’s Office referred 58 non-homicide Robbery with a Firearm cases to Worrell’s office in 2021 and 2022.
As of May 2023, only one mandatory minimum sentence had been imposed in any of those cases.
That Sheriff’s office also referred 11 non-homicide Carjacking with a Firearm cases and 14 non-homicide Home Invasion Robbery with a Firearm cases during that period.
Out of those arrests, only one resulted in a mandatory minimum sentence being imposed.
Today, @GovRonDeSantis suspended State Attorney Monique Worrell for dereliction of duty and incompetence.
Here are some examples of her policies or practices in action.
Daton Viel was arrested in March 2023 for sexual battery on a minor, as well as Lewd and Lascivious Molestation.
That arrest was made while Viel was on probation for another offense. Viel was still let out on bond.
This past weekend, Viel shot two Orlando Police Officers.
In November 2022, 17-year-old Lorenzo Larry shot and killed his pregnant girlfriend, De’Shayla Ferguson.
Larry had previously been arrested in May 2022 for carrying a concealed firearm, possession of a firearm on school property, and criminal possession of a firearm by a minor.
How do you take a movie about something as consequential as the Manhattan Project and make it about things as picayune and trivial as the denial of a security clearance and the failed confirmation of a minor cabinet secretary
Yes I watched the movie and understood the plot, I’m saying that portion of the story was simply uninteresting
In case it wasn't obvious: Trump might not be "the establishment," but he has built an establishment around him that behaves almost exactly the way the old establishment did
There's a reason that the vast majority of Trump's endorsements are coming from sitting legislators - and particularly House members
They are the people he can threaten with primary challenges
But this is what establishments do - "plata o promo" to enforce ideological conformity
The old establishment enforced neoconservatism
The new one enforces the idea that Trump is the greatest person EVER