It was exactly one year ago today when Politico published one of the generation’s biggest leaks: A leaked draft opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, leaving no doubt that Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices were poised to overturn Roe v. Wade.
As regular readers know, what mattered most, of course, is what the draft ruling said, but there was also the mystery surrounding who was responsible for the leak itself. The Supreme Court launched a fairly long — and by some measures, incomplete — investigation that failed to identify the culprit.
Alito, however, told The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page he thinks he knows who was responsible.
“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,” he says. He’s 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.”
“Those of us who were thought to be in the majority, thought to have approved my draft opinion, were really targets of assassination,” Alito added. “It was rational for people to believe that they might be able to stop the decision in Dobbs by killing one of us.”
When the Journal reminded Alito about theories — which, for the record, I’ve found credible — that the leaker might well have been a conservative trying to lock in the five-justice majority to overturn Roe, the far-right justice dismissed such speculation as “infuriating.”
So to recap, a sitting member of the Supreme Court spoke on the record to one of the more reliably Republican-friendly editorial boards in major American print media. He shared his theories about the leak of one of his own draft rulings, blamed ideological adversaries, presented no evidence, and expected his speculation to be taken seriously based on what the justice perceived as sensible.
This from a man whose job it is to be a fair and neutral arbiter.
Of course, as part of his comments to the newspaper, Alito didn’t just peddle unsubstantiated theories for no particular reason. He also whined a bit about the high court’s deteriorating public standing. From the article:
Those who throw the mud then disparage the justices for being dirty. “We’re being bombarded with this,” Justice Alito says, “and then those who are attacking us say, ‘Look how unpopular they are. Look how low their approval rating has sunk.’ 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’?”
First, dismissing legitimate questions about ethics scandals as annoying isn’t a real defense.
Second, his complaints aren’t altogether new. Circling back to our coverage from last fall, Alito has taken a variety of steps to try to defend the high court’s credibility.
But he remains an awful messenger for the message. We are, after all, talking about a justice who delivered a series of overtly political speeches, before defending the Supreme Court’s integrity at a pro-Trump organization, exactly two weeks before the midterm elections, while early voting was underway. Alito soon after publicly endorsed the work of a conservative advocacy group.
And now the far-right justice, while making evidence-free allegations against an unnamed colleague on the court, is gobsmacked about observers questioning his fairness and impartiality? Seriously?
