Why the Supreme Court's abortion opinion was leaked: Tom Dupree

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Why was the SCOTUS abortion opinion leaked?

Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Tom Dupree explains the possible political motivation behind the leak of the Supreme Court's abortion draft opinion on 'Your World.'

Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Tom Dupree explained why the Supreme Court's draft opinion on the abortion case suggesting the overturn of Roe v. Wade was leaked Tuesday on "Your World."

TOM DUPREE: It seems to me that whoever leaked this did so with a political purpose in mind. That they knew this was the way the court was trending. They wanted to see if they could somehow influence the deliberative process by putting this thing out in the public sphere. It's obviously already whipped up a huge public frenzy, and I suspect the leaker's goal was to bring public pressure and political pressure to bear on the five justices who formed at least this tentative majority, in the hopes that maybe one of them bows to public pressure and changes his or her vote. 

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[D]uring the argument in this case, it seemed - reading the tea leaves - that Chief Justice Roberts might be trying to see if there was any appetite for a compromise, a middle ground, a way that they could uphold the law, the anti-abortion law, but at the same time not overrule Roe and Casey. Alito's draft opinion says, "No way, we're going all the way. We're going to overrule Roe, we're going to overrule Casey. Roe was wrong from the minute it decided." Five tentative votes for that, but of course, we're not going to know whether there are five actual votes for it until that opinion actually comes out. 

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