Maybe, but while the intention wouldn't be to punish these people, the outcome would amount to collective punishment. Collective punishment is bad, like so bad it is a war crime, if done during a war.
By the way, the June-July recess is about when clerkships turnover and they choose to stay on for another term (at the Justice’s discretion) or move on in their careers. Clerkships aren’t forever.
I think it’s incredibly likely if they determine exactly who it is and that person would deserve to see their career ended and at that point you would just fire that one clerk; but I don’t think it is likely at all if they were fired en masse because the Court couldn’t determine the exact culprit. It’s not great, but we’re still talking about a group of people who know how the Court operates because they worked there recently, and I think it would be difficult to make a case for disbarment for the whole lot if the Chief Justice actually did exercise this option.
If the clerk says yes, fire them.
If the clerk says no, they are either telling the truth or committing a felony. Would the real leaker risk catching a felony charge if they don't know whether the FBI actually knows the identity of the leaker?
If the clerk refuses to answer, apply "adverse inference" and fire them, because they are either the leaker or are hindering an investigation.
Is the leaker the fall guy for somebody else?
It’s not just the current Justices and staff that want to know either. There has never been a before-the-fact wholesale leak of a draft opinion, but there have been months after-the-fact leaks that saw the leaker completely shunned by the community around SCOTUS independent of political affiliation or judicial philosophy from former and current clerks to the Justices themselves. They keep it tight, and clerkships, SCOTUS or otherwise, are usually the ultimate networking opportunity. Simply put, it was unprofessional and everyone involved has an interest in determining who it was no matter what the political motivations were or the hoped for outcome.
It is an extreme departure for a profession that historically prides itself on protecting the political process over making substantive judgments—a profession where the representation of nazis and murderers and terrorists in the name of access to the legal system for all is exalted.
In the end only Vermont’s bar, adopted the rule (even Illinois rejected it: https://www.2civility.org/isba-assembly-opposes-adoption-8-4...). But that just seems to me to be a minor bump in the road before the current crop of graduates from elite schools start replacing the folks in those bars as well.
My opinion is that if you have some papers that would hurt your integrity to come out, then their release is never the problem, it is the papers in the first place.
Doubly so in the case of a government agency.
So yeah, this matters, and so does the state of the court’s integrity not because of what the general public thinks, but because if the court is to function at all, the court itself needs to believe in its own integrity.
I am aware that this is not the finished product, but I think it is clear to everyone that it is not.