BREAKING: The Justice Department is pursuing a criminal investigation into who leaked the Supreme Court’s 2022 draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — the ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade — to Politico, according to The New York Times and Fox News.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office in Washington, D.C., is overseeing the probe. Prosecutors have recently issued grand jury subpoenas and sought information from people who worked at the Court at the time of the leak.
Court’s own probe came up empty
The Supreme Court’s internal investigation in 2023 — which included 97 interviews — failed to identify who leaked the draft. The leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion to Politico in May 2022 was one of the most consequential breaches of the Court’s confidentiality in modern history.
Alito: a “grave breach of trust”
Last month, Justice Alito told Fox News he has an opinion about who was responsible, but that the evidence is not strong enough to name anyone publicly. He called the leak a grave breach of trust.
President Trump has said the person responsible should be found. Statutes of limitations on some laws that could apply to the leak could expire next spring, raising the stakes for the Justice Department’s renewed scrutiny.
The Justice Department and the Supreme Court declined to comment.
Reporting attributed to The New York Times and Fox News.