On Sunday, ahead of the new Term, the justice sat down with Shannon Bream on Fox News Sunday, and the conversation turned, as it so often does with Alito, to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Alito said he “anticipated” the ruling would “anger a great many people who believed and continue to believe” there is a constitutional right to an abortion. What he didn’t anticipate was the leak.
“And I never dreamed that the draft of the opinion would be leaked… That was totally unprecedented in the history of the country,” Alito told Bream, adding that the leak was a “grave breach of the trust that everybody who worked” at the Court had in one another. He also, once again, argued that the leak “very predictably” made him and the four other justices in the majority “targets for assassination.”
Then Bream asked whether he had any ideas about the identity of the leaker.
“I do have an opinion,” he said.
Funny, I have an opinion about that too.
“But the evidence available at this time is not strong enough for the court or for me to say this is the person who was responsible.”
So… he owns a mirror?
Since the very beginning, Alito has been one of the loudest voices in the room about the leak, louder about the leak than about the end of 50 years of reproductive freedom his opinion delivered. Back in October 2022, he was at the Heritage Foundation pushing his victim narrative, and as we pointed out then, all the leak did was move up the public’s awareness of Dobbs by about a month. It’s the decision, not the leak, that made people angry. By May 2023, he was back out with the assassination theory, nearly verbatim. Sunday’s interview is the same song, three years later.
Meanwhile, the case that the leak came from the right has only gotten stronger. The motive was always obvious: the leak was likely to calcify Alito’s scorched earth draft as the opinion of the Court, taking momentum away from John Roberts’s death-by-a-thousand-cuts approach. The Court’s own investigation, run by the Marshal, focused on Court personnel — clerks and permanent employees — and left nine very obvious stones unturned. The 20-page report was then blessed by Michael Chertoff, Alito’s former colleague on the Third Circuit, who turned out to have a multi-year, seven-figure contract with the Court that nobody knew about at the time.
And then there’s the matter of Hobby Lobby. Reverend Rob Schenck, a former anti-abortion activist, came forward to say he’d learned the outcome of that 2014 decision in advance, through a network of right-wing activists who regularly dined with Alito. Alito denied it, and the Court cleared him after a cursory 10-second investigation.
This is the coworker who keeps loudly asking who’s been eating everyone’s lunch out of the office fridge, with mustard on his tie.
Which brings us to “at this time.” The FBI announced last year that it was reopening the Dobbs leak inquiry as part of a slate of investigations inspired by right-wing fever dreams. So does Alito know something about where that’s headed? Or is he laying the groundwork to be aggrieved all over again when it doesn’t name the liberal of his dreams?
If the FBI really wants to find the leaker this time, I have some thoughts about where they should start.
Earlier: Samuel Alito’s Self-Serving Dobbs Leak Theory Is Back In The News
Samuel Alito Is Back On His Histrionics Over Dobbs Leak
Everything You Need To Know About The Supreme Court Leak Report But The Justices Were Afraid To Ask
The FBI Decides What We Really Need Right Now Is Another Investigation Into The Dobbs Leak
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Bluesky @Kathryn1
The post Sam Alito Rings In The New Term By Telling Fox News He Knows Who Leaked Dobbs appeared first on Above the Law.
On Sunday, ahead of the new Term, the justice sat down with Shannon Bream on Fox News Sunday, and the conversation turned, as it so often does with Alito, to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Alito said he “anticipated” the ruling would “anger a great many people who believed and continue to believe” there is a constitutional right to an abortion. What he didn’t anticipate was the leak.
“And I never dreamed that the draft of the opinion would be leaked… That was totally unprecedented in the history of the country,” Alito told Bream, adding that the leak was a “grave breach of the trust that everybody who worked” at the Court had in one another. He also, once again, argued that the leak “very predictably” made him and the four other justices in the majority “targets for assassination.”
Then Bream asked whether he had any ideas about the identity of the leaker.
“I do have an opinion,” he said.
Funny, I have an opinion about that too.
“But the evidence available at this time is not strong enough for the court or for me to say this is the person who was responsible.”
So… he owns a mirror?
Since the very beginning, Alito has been one of the loudest voices in the room about the leak, louder about the leak than about the end of 50 years of reproductive freedom his opinion delivered. Back in October 2022, he was at the Heritage Foundation pushing his victim narrative, and as we pointed out then, all the leak did was move up the public’s awareness of Dobbs by about a month. It’s the decision, not the leak, that made people angry. By May 2023, he was back out with the assassination theory, nearly verbatim. Sunday’s interview is the same song, three years later.
Meanwhile, the case that the leak came from the right has only gotten stronger. The motive was always obvious: the leak was likely to calcify Alito’s scorched earth draft as the opinion of the Court, taking momentum away from John Roberts’s death-by-a-thousand-cuts approach. The Court’s own investigation, run by the Marshal, focused on Court personnel — clerks and permanent employees — and left nine very obvious stones unturned. The 20-page report was then blessed by Michael Chertoff, Alito’s former colleague on the Third Circuit, who turned out to have a multi-year, seven-figure contract with the Court that nobody knew about at the time.
And then there’s the matter of Hobby Lobby. Reverend Rob Schenck, a former anti-abortion activist, came forward to say he’d learned the outcome of that 2014 decision in advance, through a network of right-wing activists who regularly dined with Alito. Alito denied it, and the Court cleared him after a cursory 10-second investigation.
This is the coworker who keeps loudly asking who’s been eating everyone’s lunch out of the office fridge, with mustard on his tie.
Which brings us to “at this time.” The FBI announced last year that it was reopening the Dobbs leak inquiry as part of a slate of investigations inspired by right-wing fever dreams. So does Alito know something about where that’s headed? Or is he laying the groundwork to be aggrieved all over again when it doesn’t name the liberal of his dreams?
If the FBI really wants to find the leaker this time, I have some thoughts about where they should start.
Earlier: Samuel Alito’s Self-Serving Dobbs Leak Theory Is Back In The News
Samuel Alito Is Back On His Histrionics Over Dobbs Leak
Everything You Need To Know About The Supreme Court Leak Report But The Justices Were Afraid To Ask
The FBI Decides What We Really Need Right Now Is Another Investigation Into The Dobbs Leak
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Bluesky @Kathryn1
