Samuel Alito is a Supreme Court Justice who says he “pretty much” knows who leaked the Dobbs V. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Draft Decision from last year.
Alito said to the Wall Street Journal he knew “pretty well” who was responsible. This level of proof, however, is not sufficient to identify an individual. “It was used to intimidate courts for six weeks by those outside.”
The draft was leaked in early May last year, revealing that the high court intended to overturn Roe V. Wade. The official decision was released more than a month later.
Alito said in the Journal that those of us who believed we were the majority and thought to approve of the draft opinion were almost assassinated. People thought it was reasonable to believe that they could stop Dobbs’s decision by assassinating us.
He stated that “I don’t feel physically unsafe, because we have more protection.” He said that he is “driven around in a tank,” and “that I’m not supposed to go alone anywhere without the tank or members of the police department.”
He said that the leak “created an atmosphere of distrust and suspicion”.
The ruling returned the decision to the states on whether or not they want to ban abortion.
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences,” Alito wrote in the opinion. “The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion. Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives.”
The investigation did not identify who leaked the information or how Politico obtained a draft opinion.
In a report issued earlier this year, the Supreme Court Marshal stated that at the time it was impossible to determine the source of the document or the way in which the draft opinion reached Politico.
Alito is a member of the Supreme Court. He has been there since 2006. He was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Bush.
