Alito says he has hunch who leaked Dobbs decision

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said in an interview that he has an “opinion” on who leaked the draft opinion of justices overturning Roe vs. Wade in 2022.

During an appearance on “ Fox News Sunday, ” Alito said he “anticipated” the conservative majority’s ruling in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health would “anger a great many people who believed and continue to believe” there is a constitutional right to an abortion.

The justice noted, though, he did not expect the “the forms” of the reaction to the ruling, which he called “extreme” in some instances.

“And I never dreamed that the draft of the opinion would be leaked. … That was totally unprecedented in the history of the country,” he told host Shannon Bream, adding the leak was a “grave breach of the trust that everybody who worked” at the high court had in each other.

Citing an initial draft majority opinion Alito wrote, Politico reported in May 2022 that the justices voted to strike down the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which guaranteed the federal right to abortion access.

Five of the justices — Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas — struck down the legacy decision and Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, the latter of which upheld the former ruling in 1992.

Alito argued to Bream that the draft leak “very predictably” made he and his four colleagues “targets for assassination,” referencing a woman traveling to Kavanaugh’s home in June 2022 with plans to assassinate the justice over the ruling.

A federal judge sentenced the woman, Sophie Roske, to more than eight years in prison in October 2025, after prosecutors asked for at least 30 years of jail time.

When the Fox host pressed Alito on whether he had an opinion on who leaked the draft opinion, the justice responded affirmatively.

“I do have an opinion,” he said. “But the evidence available at this time is not strong enough for the court or for me to say this is the person who was responsible.”