Since the moment that the Supreme Court’s draft decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health was leaked, there were theories the leak came from the right — one of the conservative justices or their inner circle. In terms of motive for the leak, it just made sense, since the leak was likely to calcify Samuel Alito’s scorched earth draft as the opinion of the Court, taking momentum away from John Roberts’s death by a thousand cuts approach. That theory of the impact of the Dobbs leak was confirmed by Joan Biskupic’s book, Nine Black Robes: Inside the Supreme Court’s Drive to the Right and Its Historic Consequences.
But, given the sturm und drang over the leak, the Supreme Court had to investigate and said investigation was unable to pinpoint a suspect — while leaving nine very obvious stones unturned. All of which just further seemed to solidify the prevailing logic that the leak came from the right.
However, the leak and what could have happened has become a hobby horse of the conservative legal movement with Alito — repeatedly — pushing the victim narrative theorizing the leak of the Dobbs decision before it was formalized could have incentivized assassins eager to stop the decision.
We’re about to take another trip on that particular merry-go-round. Yesterday, the FBI announced MOAR investigations inspired by right-wing fever dreams, including a new investigation into the Dobbs leak. The FBI was famously kept out of the original investigation into the leak (that was led by the U.S. Marshal’s office and blessed by an outside evaluation by Michael Chertoff, Sam Alito’s former colleague when they both sat on the Third Circuit), so *perhaps* this will prove a more revealing inquiry. Maybe, but if the stones they start turning over point in the right-wing direction many suspect, well, I guess you won’t actually hear about what the FBI finds.
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 Mastodon @[email protected].