(CNN) Justice Samuel Alito said he had a “good idea” who was responsible. Unprecedented expression of a draft concept Last year’s Supreme Court decision, Roe v.
A Interview In an opinion piece published Friday by The Wall Street Journal, Alito rejected the idea that the draft was leaked by one of the five conservative justices in the ruling’s majority.
“It annoys me,” Alito said of the speculation. “Look, this made us targets for assassination. Would I do it myself? Would the five of us do it? It’s incredible.”
In an interview in mid-April, he admitted he had no evidence of who was behind the leak, only to name the person he thought was responsible. The final opinion overturning Roe in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health System was largely tracked with the draft.
“It was part of an effort to prevent the Dobbs draft … from becoming the court’s decision,” Alito said. “It was used by outsiders for those six weeks — as part of a campaign to try to intimidate the court.”
Alito, like other justices, has condemned the leak. In a statement issued in January, the Supreme Court called it a “serious attack on the judicial process”.
Report published with a public version of the report Summarizes the investigation into the leak by Court Marshal Gail Curley. The release said the investigation team “has not been able to identify the person responsible in light of the evidence to date.”
Politics was published Draft in early MayThe court issued its final opinion at the end of its term several weeks ago.
In recent comments to the Journal, Alito said Marshall “did a good job with the resources available to him” and acknowledged his decision not to publicly identify a criminal. He condemned the threats and hostility facing the court, including the attempted assassination of Justice Brett Kavanagh last summer.
In interviews, Alito took swipes at those who he said criticized the court “unreasonably,” and he railed about how some pockets of the legal profession play a role in criticizing the high court rather than defending it.
“The idea has always been that judges should not respond to criticism, but when the courts are unfairly attacked, the organized bar comes to their defense,” he said, “and if anything, they have participated in some of these attacks.”
Alito rejected public scrutiny that Justice Clarence Thomas was subject to ethical lapses, but he defended Cavanagh’s handling of allegations that he sexually assaulted a teenage girl as a high school student during the confirmation process.
“After Judge Kavanagh was accused of being a rapist during his Senate confirmation hearings, he gave an emotional speech, made an emotional scene, and he was criticized because it wasn’t fair, and it’s not appropriate behavior for a judge to speak those words. I don’t know — if somebody calls you a rapist. ?” Alito said.
