of the house foreign affairs committee talks about his recent meeting with president zelenskyy. overnight, comedian dave chappelle was attacked on stage while performing at a comedy festival in los angeles. we ll bring you the very latest. and we begin this morning with a continuing firestorm over the unprecedented leak of a draft opinion in which a majority of justices on the u.s. supreme court appear ready to overturn the right to an abortion, granted by the roe v. wade decision, nearly 50 years ago. a handful of protesters are still in front of the u.s. supreme court this morning. as they have been since politico first published the draft opinion roughly 36 hours ago. protests were also held last night until cities across the country from new york to chicago to phoenix. the supreme court has confirmed the document published by politico is authentic. but it stressed, this is not the
but we ve had really important supreme court decisions over time when you don t get five people who agree on one thing. casey, the decision that affirmed roe, was a plurality opinion, meaning less than nine. right. three justices including my mentor justice o connor wrote the controlling opinion. the narrowest view would be the controlling view. so there is a possibility that there s concurrence out there. again, i think the best speculations that would be by chief justice roberts. and maybe he would be able to take one of the people from this majority that was formed at the beginning, and make a controlling opinion up to justices. now, that s if you think the leak is about internal jockeying and that was the motivation of the leaker, i think it s also important to think about the fact that the leak might have been meant to send a signal to the outside world. jose, i was struck by the fact
really important because i think sometimes people think of the supreme court as almost an active debating club between the justices. that s not quite right. the circulation of opinions are really the way principally they talk with each other. so this case was heard in december. after oral argument, during that week, the court would have gotten together in private, just the nine of them, to have a conference. and to give their preliminary views about the case. and a majority would form. and the senior justice in the majority would decide who likes the majority opinion. it s clear that chief justice roberts was not in that group proper likely he would have written the opinion, and not written such a caustic opinion. and then the majority writer works on his draft. and after he circulates it, in this case, justice alito, then concurrences and dissent will start to circulate. and that s really when the negotiations begin. votes can shift. or just as important, and this
is really important, the language of an opinion, some of its details might change. there might be, for example, a justice like chief justice roberts who said, i can go along with some of this. but you ve got to put a rape and incest exception into this draft. and those negotiations would ensue. so, one theory is that, and i think a very strong theory, is that the leak happened at that moment, when those discussions, through the writing among the justices begin. so, just and i m trying to, you know, view this. the fact that it s five to four, right, the fact they say the majority will be writing this. that s improbable that those numbers change, or not, tali? it s quite possible that they would change. and you know, everyone is thinking about 5-4 and how to divide 9 into two groups.