‘This Made Us Targets Of Assassination’: Supreme Court Justice Reveals Who He Believes To Know Was Responsible Behind Controversial Leaked Dobbs Draft

On Friday, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who was responsible for writing the majority opinion in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, revealed that he believes he has a “pretty good idea” of the identity of the leaker behind his draft opinion on overturning Roe v. Wade this past May.

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was a landmark decision from the Supreme Court this past June, overturning the previous abortion precedent of Roe v. Wade and passing abortion regulation back to state legislatures. 

Justice Alito says he is also certain of the reasoning behind the leaked Dobbs draft. “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 told The Wall Street Journal. “It was a part of an effort to prevent the Dobbs draft… from becoming the decision of the court.”

The leak shook the court and had major effects on the safety of the majority opinion judges due to the high-stakes, controversial nature of the decision. “It was rational for people to believe that they might be able to stop the decision in Dobbs by killing one of us,” Alito said of the threats the Justices faced following the leaks.

We can observe Alito’s concerns having been realized in the Brett Kavanaugh assassination plot that was halted by the FBI in June. The FBI caught the would-be assassin talking about working to “stop roe v wade from being overturned” by “remov[ing] some people from the supreme court,” according to the FBI, as reported by CNN.

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This information came out in July, following weeks of protests taking place in front of Supreme Court Justices’ homes bringing concerns about the Justices’ safety.

As for the actual identity, Justice Alito didn’t directly inform The Wall Street Journal of whom he believed to be responsible for the leak but did push that it wasn’t one of the Justices from the majority opinion. “Look, this made us targets of assassination. Would I do that to myself?” he asked The Wall Street Journal. “Would the five of us have done that to ourselves? It’s quite implausible.”

There was an official investigation into the leak that was ordered by Chief Justice John Roberts, but Gail Curley, the marshal of the Supreme Court, said in January she had been unable to definitively determine the leaker’s identity, as reported by The New York Post.

It’s undeniable that the leak brought untold risk to the Supreme Court Justices’ and their families’ safety, and one can only hope whoever is responsible for the break of security can face whatever justice is fair.

The original leaked draft of the Dobbs v. Jackson decision can be found here.

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