Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito denied any allegation that he revealed in advance the decision of a 2014 case surrounding contraceptives and religious rights after a former anti-abortion activist said he learned of the final decision weeks before its announcement.
The allegation was levied by Rev. Rob Schenck, a former anti-abortion activist and founder of a group called Faith and Action who later changed his position away from opposing abortion access to contending such procedures are up to “an individual and his or her conscience.” Schenck claimed he was told about the outcome of the 2014 Burwell v. Hobby Lobby case by Gayle Wright, the wife of affluent real estate developer Don Wright, both of whom were part of a program that attempted to gain close access to the justices known as “Operation Higher Court,” according to the New York Times.
While Alito acknowledged his social relationship with the Wrights, he vehemently denied the notion that he or his wife, Martha-Ann, were sources of the leak.
JUDICIARY DEMOCRATS DEMAND PROBE OF LATEST SUPREME COURT LEAK
“The allegation that the Wrights were told the outcome of the decision in the Hobby Lobby case, or the authorship of the opinion of the court, by me or my wife is completely false,” Alito said in a statement to the Washington Examiner via the court’s Public Information Office.
“My wife and I became acquainted with the Wrights some years ago because of their strong support for the Supreme Court Historical Society, and since then, we have had a casual and purely social relationship. I never detected any effort on the part of the Wrights to obtain confidential information or to influence anything that I did in either an official or private capacity, and I would have strongly objected if they had done so. I have no knowledge of any project that they allegedly undertook for ‘Faith and Action,’ ‘Faith and Liberty,’ or any similar group, and I would be shocked and offended if those allegations are true,” the justice added.
Wright also denied such claims by Schenck on Saturday, saying that the account of her receiving a leak from the Alitos is “patently not true.”
“Cases are never discussed, everybody knows that,” Wright told CNN.
Schenck reached out to Chief Justice John Roberts in a letter sent in July of this year, informing him that he had received a message from Gayle Wright “notifying me she had indeed obtained the information during that visit.”
The allegation by Schenck comes at a time when the high court is still reeling from distrust, protests, and lowered public confidence after the draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization leaked to Politico in May, signaling the eroding of abortion access and overturning of Roe v. Wade.
The matter is especially complex given that Schenck spent nearly 20 years as a militant anti-abortion activist and has now become a whistleblower against a sitting justice who denies his account on that matter. Following the release of his 2018 memoir, Schenck told NPR that he lives “with regret” over his years of activism against abortion and now exhibits a more “accessible theology,” according to his website.
Notably, Schenck wrote on Facebook on May 5, after the Dobbs draft leak came out, that he had been privy to an early disclosure of the abortion-related opinion, writing, “I had heard similar language directly from the Justice in a number of settings,” referring to Alito.
And there are numerous circumstantial pieces of evidence to show Schenck had some advanced knowledge about the outcome of the Hobby Lobby case, according to a timeline of events recounted by Politico reporter Josh Gerstein.
For instance, Faith and Action released a media advisory lauding Alito’s decision and calling on members of the press to a prayer service slated for June 30, 2014, at 10:30 a.m., the morning that the Burwell opinion was announced. But at 10:29 a.m., SCOTUSblog writer Amy Howe posted that Alito had only just finished his summary. The media advisory said Schenck had reviewed a copy of the opinion but a C-SPAN recording from that day depicts him searching for a copy to review.
“I need the decision. … I need the decision,” Schenck says as he begins a press conference at the bottom of the high court steps.
Although the New York Times dedicated a lengthy report about Schenck’s allegations over the 2014 opinion, Politico noted it spent several months attempting to corroborate his claims and was “unable to locate anyone who heard about the decision directly from either Alito or his wife before its release at the end of June 2014.”
Additionally, the New York Times noted the evidence to support Schenck’s account “has gaps” but contended a trail of “contemporaneous emails and conversations that strongly suggested he knew the outcome and the author of the Hobby Lobby decision before it was made public.”
Judicial Crisis Network President Carrie Severino, who has denounced the Dobbs leak and called for disbarment against Supreme Court leakers, pointed to Politico’s hesitancy to run with Schenck’s account.
“Every individual reported to be involved in the alleged 2014 leak has denied that it happened. Politico spent months trying to substantiate the account and could not. The New York Times nonetheless ran with the baseless allegation to facilitate a hit against Justice Alito,” Severino told the Washington Examiner.
At the time of the Dobbs leak, Roberts launched an investigation and vowed that the bench would not be intimidated or swayed by any sort of outside pressure when deciding on whether to overturn Roe. Although Justices Neil Gorsuch and Elena Kagan signaled in recent months that a report on the investigation could be forthcoming, the high court otherwise remained silent about the monthslong investigation, furthering speculation as to whether the source of the leak will ever be discovered, let alone disclosed to the public.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The high court has not commented on Schenck’s letter to Roberts or whether any investigation was conducted after the 2014 leak.
The Washington Examiner contacted Schenck for a response.
