Alito Says He Has 'an Idea' Who Leaked the Dobbs Draft, Still Won't Name Anyone

Since Nicholas Roske was arrested outside Justice Brett Kavanaugh's Maryland home on June 8, 2022, with a gun, knife and burglary tools, the question of who leaked the Dobbs draft to Politico has gone unanswered. Justice Samuel Alito is now saying, in new interviews released this week, that he thinks he knows.

Alito told Fox News' Shannon Bream, in an interview set to air Oct. 4, that he has "an idea" about the leaker's identity but that "the evidence isn't strong enough" for him to come forward publicly, according to the Epoch Times and NTD. He did not say who he suspects, how he arrived at the theory, or whether he has shared it with the Marshal of the Supreme Court, who led the original investigation.

That investigation, described by the Daily Caller, spanned eight months and 126 formal interviews and closed in January 2023 without identifying a leaker. Four years later, Alito's comments are the closest any justice has come to suggesting they have a personal theory, but it remains just that: a theory, with no name, no evidence disclosed, and no reopened probe.

"Very predictably" targets

The interviews, conducted by CBS News' Jan Crawford and Fox's Bream, are tied to the release of Alito's new book, "So Ordered: An Originalist's View of the Constitution, the Court, and Our Country," scheduled for release this week as the Supreme Court's new term opens Oct. 5.

Alito told Crawford that when the chief justice informed the justices of the leak during a private lunch in late April 2022, the realization came quickly. "The thought occurred to me, and I think to the others in the majority, that this would endanger us," Alito said, according to Reason. "And it made us targets for assassination."

To Bream, Alito went further, calling the leak "a grave breach of the trust that everybody who worked in this building had before that point" that "very predictably made the five of us in the majority targets for assassination," per NTD.

Roske pleaded guilty to the attempted assassination of Kavanaugh and was sentenced in October 2025 to eight years in prison, according to a Justice Department press release cited by the Daily Caller. Roske told investigators he was upset over the leaked draft. He abandoned the attack after calling his sister, who talked him out of it.

Politico has defended its decision to publish the draft, calling it an "unprecedented view into the justices' deliberations" and "plainly news of great public interest," as Reason noted. Alito rejects that reasoning directly: "Politico knew, or should've known, that that would be the consequence of their decision to publish it," he said.

Security funding and threat numbers

The renewed attention on court security comes months after Justices Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett asked the House Appropriations Committee, in a July 14, 2026 hearing, to raise the Supreme Court's security budget by 10% for fiscal year 2027, according to the Daily Caller. Kagan told the committee threats against the court rose 35% in 2026 and 25% the year before that. Barrett said she never expected the job would mean explaining to her children "what a bulletproof vest was and why I had to wear one."

Those numbers come from the justices themselves, not an independent audit, and no outside verification of the percentage increases appears in available reporting.

The fairness question

Alito's critics, as CBS News' profile notes, have cast him as the court's most ideologically driven member, with his opinions on abortion, affirmative action and religious liberty described by opponents as fueled by "grievance" or even "revenge for the '60s." Alito calls that a "caricature" and says he is applying the Constitution as written.

A sitting justice publicly stating he has a suspect, without naming them or producing evidence, is the kind of accusation that can shadow someone's reputation without any chance to respond or any formal process to test it. Alito has not identified anyone, and no new investigation has been announced by the court or any law enforcement agency. Whether he ever produces that evidence, or whether this remains an unprovable hunch from the one justice whose opinion was at the center of the leak, is still an open question heading into the new term that begins Oct. 5.