Just days before the anniversary of a leak that changed the scope of trust in the nation’s highest court, Justice Samuel Alito says he has a “good idea” of who leaked the draft signaling the end of Roe v. Wade.
Alito says the Supreme Court marshal tasked with investigating the leak “did a good job with the resources that were available to her” and ultimately agrees that the evidence from the investigation was insufficient for a public accusation, according to an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
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“I personally have a pretty good idea who is responsible, but that’s different from the level of proof that is needed to name somebody,” Alito said, adding he feels certain about the motive: “It was a part of an effort to prevent the Dobbs draft . . . from becoming the decision of the court. And that’s how it was used for those six weeks by people on the outside — as part of the campaign to try to intimidate the court.”
The decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which allowed states to impose laws restricting abortion access, leaked on May 2, 2021, in an article published by Politico.
The high court’s investigators spent nine months probing the matter before releasing a report in January that found evidence was insufficient to name anyone publicly. The report indicated that there was little to be done to solve the case but still open avenues to pursue.
The account from Alito stems from an interview conducted jointly by a Wall Street Journal reporter and a conservative lawyer on April 13.
The author of the Dobbs decision also rejected theories that the culprit behind the leak must have been a conservative in order to lock in the five-justice majority to overturn abortion.
“That’s infuriating to me,” Alito said of that theory. “Look, this made us targets of assassination. Would I do that to myself? Would the five of us have done that to ourselves? It’s quite implausible.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh was the target of a 26-year-old who claimed he wanted to kill justices who decided to overturn Roe. Alito said he doesn’t feel “physically unsafe” because he’s “driven around in basically a tank, and I’m not really supposed to go anyplace by myself without the tank and my members of the police force.”
Alito was also asked during the interviews about “ethics” accusations against Justice Clarence Thomas regarding recent reports that he did not disclose trips from a wealthy GOP donor.
The justice declined to comment specifically on that matter but argued there was a “concerted attack on the court and on individual justices,” adding that the pattern is “new during my lifetime.”
“We are being hammered daily and I think quite unfairly in a lot of instances. And nobody, practically nobody, is defending us. The idea has always been that judges are not supposed to respond to criticisms, but if the courts are being unfairly attacked, the organized bar will come to their defense,” Alito said, adding, “If anything, they’ve participated to some degree in these attacks.”
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Alito dismissed critics who mock the Supreme Court and its low approval ratings from the public.
“Well, yeah, what do you expect when you’re — day in and day out, ‘They’re illegitimate. They’re engaging in all sorts of unethical conduct. They’re doing this, they’re doing that’?” he said.
