The majority of the House Judiciary Committee is now reportedly calling a former conservative turned left-wing activist Rev. Robert Schenck as a witness in a hearing on Thursday concerning allegations that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito leaked court opinions in 2014.
This in spite the fact that the Supreme Court deemed Schenck “not entirely credible” in 1996.
The hearing on Thursday, titled “Undue Influence: ‘Operation Higher Court’ and Politicking at SCOTUS,” follows a revelation that Alito allegedly provided material to a couple who had contact with Schenck.
Despite the Supreme Court’s decision that Schenck was an untrustworthy witness, the reverend is still set to be the Democrats’ star witness during the hearing.
The Court also previously questioned both brothers about claims that they had exchanged clothing to deceive pro-abortion campaigners about the identity of Paul Schenck.
When neither brother remembered the incident, the Court ruled that “the Schencks’ failure to recall the occurrence was absolutely unbelievable.”
Despite this history, the House Judiciary Committee is set to hear Schenck’s allegations, which were published in a New York Times report, that he obtained information about the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. case after Alito had dinner with mutual friends.
Mark Paoletta, a partner with the law firm Schaffer Jaffe and Republicans’ sole witness for the hearing, told the DCNF that the committee was simply attempting to link Alito to the Hobby Lobby allegations.
Schenck solicited funds with the hope of persuading the Supreme Court to overturn Roe, although later acknowledging that he was only able to reach Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and Samuel Alito, all of whom were already staunchly pro-life.
Gayle Wright and her husband, Don Wright, had dinner with Justice Alito and his wife in 2014, according to Schenck, and Wright allegedly phoned him afterward to tell him that Alito had revealed to her the conclusion of the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court case.
In 2015, Schenck collaborated with Walt Disney’s great-grandniece, Abigail Disney, on the documentary “The Amor of Light,” which explored the inconsistencies of being pro-life and pro-gun. Schenck quit Faith and Action in 2018 to work full-time at the Dietrick Bonhoeffer Institute (DBI), which he founded with Disney’s assistance in 2016.
DBI was funded by Disney and groups such as the California Community Foundation, a left-wing activist organisation located in Los Angeles that granted it more than $1.8 million over four years.
Schenck penned an editorial piece for the New York Times a year later, detailing how he had shifted from pro-life to pro-choice.
According to the Times, Schenck wrote to Chief Justice John Roberts on June 7, 2022. The letter addressed Schenck’s worries about the Dobbs leak in May and said that he was aware of a prior leak about the Hobby Lobby judgment in 2014.
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