Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Chief Justice John Roberts attempts to twist the law into nothingness in order to appease leftwing activists.

That’s the story of a fresh leak from CNN claiming that Roberts attempted to convince several of the real conservative justices on the Supreme Court to reaffirm Roe v. Wade. That confirms what many suspected as the saga unfolded for months prior to the dropping of the Dobbs decision, which sent the issue of abortion back to the states.

New CNN reporting from @JoanBiskupic: Chief Justice John Roberts privately lobbied his fellow conservative justices to preserve Roe v. Wade – but the unprecedented leak of the draft opinion may have doomed his efforts. pic.twitter.com/g0fKkIT14f

— New Day (@NewDay) July 26, 2022

Roberts has a long history of ignoring the aspects of the law so that he can come to the least controversial decision in any given case. The most infamous example happened during Barack Obama’s tenure. Obama administration officials were stringently arguing that the Affordable Care Act wasn’t a tax, both publicly and in court, because they felt that was politically expedient.

Yet, Roberts managed to uphold the ACA by finding that it was a tax despite the very people who wrote it saying it wasn’t. It was one of the more surreal Supreme Court decisions in modern history, having a justice ignore the stated intentions of a piece of legislation in order to cause the least amount of public consternation, specifically on the left (the ACA was overall unpopular at the time).

There are other examples, such as Roberts joining the liberals of the court in a failed attempt to uphold unequally applied COVID restrictions on prayer meetings. And who could forget him voting to strike down a Louisiana law that simply required abortion facilities to follow basic health standards? In that case, Roberts had previously cast a vote the other direction on the same question before he claimed he was bound by precedent over something he pointedly said was decided wrongly.

You get the idea. Roberts is a coward, constantly shifting his standards in order to keep the left happy because he’s terrified their public outbursts might “delegitimize” the court. But the Supreme Court does not exist in order to soothe public opinion. Rather, it exists to interpret the law and rule based on its plainly stated merits. That Roberts’ concerns about legitimacy only seem to go in one political direction only makes things worse.

Yet, there’s something else to note about this CNN leak. Namely, it’s specifically designed to make you believe that the Dobbs draft leaker was a conservative. Note the framing that had the leak not happened, Roberts may have succeeded in shifting Justice Brett Kavanaugh or Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

To be frank, that’s a ridiculous assertion. No conservative justice leaked that draft knowing full well it was going to lead to threats on their lives and abject pandemonium outside their homes. If anything, the leak made it harder for those voting to overturn Roe to stand firm.

Besides, Roberts was never going to convince Kavanaugh or Barrett to change their votes based on his ridiculous notion that Roe and Casey could be preserved while getting rid of the viability test. That would have been absolutely contrary to the law, but so on brand for the chief justice. Roberts may not care about such particulars, but Kavanaugh and Barrett do.

In the end, this leak simply confirms what I and others on the right have been saying for years. Roberts is absolutely terrible. That this latest leak even occurred is a sign that his influence on the court has collapsed. My response? Good.