Alito Says He Might Know Who Leaker Was but Won't Tell

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said he think he knows who leaked the draft of his majority opinion in the case that threw out Roe v. Wade, but he's not naming names because the highest court in the land can't prove it. The draft was published in Politico a year ago, sparking demonstrations by abortion rights supporters and leading the chief justice to order an internal investigation. Alito's comments were given in an April 13 interview that was published Friday in the opinion section of the Wall Street Journal. The leak, he said, was an effort to intimidate the court, the Washington Post reports.

"I personally have a pretty good idea who is responsible," Alito said, "but that's different from the level of proof that is needed to name somebody." Either way, he said the idea was to keep his opinion on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization from becoming the court's. Of the floated notion that someone leaked the draft to freeze in place the five votes needed to bring down Roe, Alito said, "That’s infuriating to me," per CNN. "Look, this made us targets of assassination. Would I do that to myself? Would the five of us have done that to ourselves?" Alito said he agreed with the court marshal's decision not to release the name of a suspect. (More Samuel A. Alito stories.)