Grassley: Supreme Court draft leak a “monumental breach of trust”
Grassley has a long history of voting to restrict abortion, and he said overturning precedent is not unheard of.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, answers questions during a visit to the County Materials Corporation in Iowa City as part of Grassley’s Johnson County stop on his 99 County Tour. “We’ve appropriated money every year for infrastructure,” Grassley said while talking about infrastructure improvements since 1956. “The only thing is we never used the word infrastructure, we always said highway,” Grassley joked.
May 4, 2022
Sen. Chuck Grassley said the leak of the draft Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade threatens the integrity of the court.
“I think it wouldn’t be wrong to say some monumental breach of trust within our judicial system,” Grassley said.
Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, said in a press call with reporters that if the person responsible is a lawyer, they should be disbarred, since leaking confidential information is prohibited.
Grassley has a long history of voting in favor of limiting or banning access to abortion. In March 2022, Grassley recieved an award for “stalwart support of religious freedoms and pro-life protections.” Grassley has also received a “perfect score” from Family Research Council, a religious, anti-abortion organization.
A longtime member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Grassley has stated that he wants justices who follow what he sees as the original meaning of the Constitution. As for overturning Roe v. Wade, Grassley said that overturning the 50 year precedent is not unheard of.
“You got to remember that courts in 200 years have overturned precedent and the best example of it is Plessy v. Ferguson being overturned by the Brown [v. Board of Education] case,” Grassley said. “Nobody today would try to justify ‘separate but equal’ just because it was a precedent.”
Abby Finkenauer, a Democrat running in the primary to challenge Grassley in the general election, said she would work to codify Roe v. Wade into law if elected.
“We have to hold Senator Grassley accountable, and that starts with defeating him in November, abolishing the filibuster, and codifying the protections of Roe v. Wade into law immediately,” she said in a statement following the leak.
RELATED: Drafted SCOTUS decision opens door for abortion access limitations in Iowa
The leaked Supreme Court decision, if it becomes official, would give state legislatures more power to limit and outlaw abortion. The opinion was written by Justice Samuel Alito and signed by five other justices, including the three Trump appointees.
Iowa’s senior U.S. senator had a major hand in shaping the deeply conservative court that made the potential ruling possible. As chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee from 2015-2019, Grassley withheld nomination hearings on Merrick Garland, then-President Obama’s nomination to the court, during a presidential election year in 2016. Under former President Donald Trump, he oversaw the confirmation of Justice Neil Gorsuch and Justice Brett Kavanaugh during the Trump administration.
On Twitter, a compilation of Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, has gone viral of her saying that Kavanaugh and Gorsuch told her that they would not work to overturn legal precedent. Grassley said in the press call today that he does not believe any of the Justices have been misleading in their intentions.
